


Haris

by CherFleur



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, De-aging, Demisexuality, Depression, Found Family, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It's mutual! Yay!, Low Self Esteem, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Time Travel, is it Mutual?, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23178889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherFleur/pseuds/CherFleur
Summary: Desmond grasped the Apple to save the world and doom it in one. There were no other choices and he was the only one who could make them, the burden crushed him where he stood. He was swallowed by fear and agony and he died as he'd lived.Alone.~Bayek was old and his Hidden Ones were spreading far and wide, more than he and Aya had ever hoped for. Still, he could not find the contentment in it that she had. He missed it in a way she did not, healed where he had not been. There was a hole, a piece of him missing he didn't know how to sooth.Having a child.
Relationships: Alexios & Desmond, Alexios & Kassandra (Assassin's Creed), Bayek & Desmond Miles, Bayek/Alexios
Comments: 311
Kudos: 783





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is an idea that's been floating around for a while now. I love me some found family and character development, so... Yeah.
> 
> Grammar and Typos, please let me know!

There was… light.

Someone was singing something in a language that he couldn’t quite remember, couldn’t quite understand. It felt like he’d known at some point, even if he no longer did. 

It was warm. Comfortable. It echoed and filled his bones with a pleasant buzz that soothed the parts of him that still hurt so very much.

Not at all like the agony of eternity and ending that he was sure he was supposed to be experiencing. That cold burn that had shaken and shivered him down into a pathetic thing that simply wished for the end. That which had hollowed him out and left him brittle, like old parchment left out in the sun and bleached of color.

Desmond felt… thin.

That low singing voice paused momentarily, and a roughly calloused hand pressed gently against his forehead, soothing in an unfamiliar way. A strange comfort he thinks he longed for once but was never given. 

It was missing a finger, that hand - the ring finger it felt like - and something about that was comforting, a relief.

“Sleep, young one. I will watch over you.”

Something in the man’s accent reminded him of Altaïr - perhaps the way he shaped foreign words - it was distant, like a cousin he'd never met. It wasn’t the Arabic that he was used to, but a flavor of something else that had perhaps helped shape the language as he knew it. Something older. Something new to him, for all its age. Significantly warmer than his ancestor’s had been as well, even after the years where he had learned humility and gentleness. 

Still, he felt safe, and so Desmond slept.

He was so very tired, after all.

~*~

Next time he woke, the man wasn’t singing that song though he was humming something different. He had that fingerless hand curled around the back of Desmond’s neck, running up through his scruffy hair like one would soothe a sick child. A steady, heavy heartbeat thrummed from the wide chest beneath him, echoing in the cavern of his own abdomen oddly.

Something inside of him was shivering from a kind of frail need that had been rejected one too many times.

Desmond was a tall guy, so it was strange that he felt so… small. He was held in the V of the man’s legs and his face was buried against the rough cloth on the man’s shoulder. Still, despite not knowing who was holding him, he felt safe.

Safer than he’d ever felt before.

Humming in his ear, a hand in his hair and a heartbeat in his stomach; Desmond was at peace.

So, he slept.

~*~

This time, when he knew that he was awake, it was because he was staring into the eyes of an eagle. That golden eye blinked surprise when he opened his, and then it _chirped_ at him sweetly, hopping a little, talons making a soft clicking noise.

“Um…”

 _What_. 

“Ah, Senu,” that low, smooth voice was amused as scarred, gold-dark skinned hands reached out to gently grasp the bird. “Leave the boy alone, eh?”

When he lifted a hand to rub at his eyes, he stopped and stared.

He was…

The sleeve of his hoodie was ridiculously baggy around thin wrists, and when he lifted the other, he expected to see nasty burns but instead saw intricate pale lines. Like that of the seams between plates on machinery painted onto his skin, and when he twisted it a little, it glimmered alarming gold. When he touched it, it still felt like skin, he couldn’t feel those lines of separation, no matter how they brightened at the contact.

It was almost like… circuitry.

Desmond shuddered at the thought, stomach clenching with nausea that felt a little distant in the face of other shocks.

“What in the _hell_ …”

“Yes, I thought it rather alarming as well, when it first started.”

Jerking his gaze upwards, he stared into the kohl rimmed amber eyes in a face that wasn’t eerily similar to his own in the way that Altaïr’s and Ezio’s were. It was more scarred than his own was – just the thought had his hands flying up to his face to feel his lip, a mixture of relief and disappointment to find the familiar texture – and broader. His cheekbones were sharper than Desmond’s, and he had a more defined jawline dotted with stubble.

“Um,” glancing out at the great plains of white nothingness around them which seemed to pulse with white light in lines like those that now decorated his arm. “What’s happening?”

The assassin, for that was what he had to be, was dressed in casual robes of a style that reminded him more of Egypt than of Masyaf. There was something about his bearing that spoke of an easy confidence in himself, in his body and what he could do with it. It was like looking at Altaïr in his later years, but this man was in his prime, physically, able to take on more enemies than such a seasoned warrior could.

Sat next to Desmond’s too small form were his hidden blade and the rest of his clothing, neatly folded in a way that he was unfamiliar with. Did even stuff like that change over the years, the way that people folded their clothing?

Had he shrunk right out of his _pants_?

Considering he was covered by his hoodie to his knees, signs pointed towards an embarrassing _yes._

“I’m not quite sure,” despite the admission, the man didn’t seem perturbed. “But you called for me, and an Old One told me that I could refuse, but…” he was quiet, studying Desmond, so much larger than Desmond was currently. Yet he wasn’t intimidating in the least, no matter how ready for violence he seemed. “I decided that I did not want to.”

“Me?” frowning, all he could think of was the burning pain he’d been in, the eternity of agony he couldn’t escape, and how he was now in front of this man he’d never even _dreamed_ before. “How did I call for you?”

Something in those features softened, gentled.

“Do you really not know?”

Swallowing, he looked down at his too small hands that still bore the scars of a lifetime and considered those last moments. Remembered thinking of how afraid he was, how he wished he’d still had the bar, how he wished that there was anyone else to do this. That someone would help him.

 _I wish dad was here_.

And yet… and yet his own father had never protected him when it mattered. Had let him walk to his death and had demanded things of him he hadn’t wanted to give. He’d never done anything for Desmond’s own good over the good of the Brotherhood and he’d never been able to forgive him that.

So, what did this mean?

Had… had the Apple answered that desperate plea rather than do anything else?

Looking up from under his lashes, something twisted in his chest at the thought of pulling someone through time just to answer to a worthless cry for protection.

“I… wanted a dad,” he admitted quietly, ashamed. “Someone to protect me. I… I didn’t know that it would do anything. That I’d pull anyone into wherever _this_ is. I’m sorry.”

“Do not be,” the man shifted out of his comfortable cross-legged position to sit on his knees in front of Desmond. “I am always willing to help those in need.”

Something complicated shifted over his face for a moment before that hand missing an Assassin’s finger settled on his shoulder.

“I lost my son,” grief was plain in the man’s eyes, old and weary but still sharp enough to cut. “And while I had vengeance, it is an ache I cannot part from.”

He felt small, but also like there was something warm, something new, perhaps hope, whirling under his breastbone. It was awful, wasn’t it, to know that maybe he could fit with someone like a puzzle piece, that he could be a missing link in someone else’s chain. That he might be able to belong for more than just someone wanting a tool or to have his genetic memory handy.

“Would it be okay?” his voice was small, tired; a child who had never had the chance to grow. “Would it be okay to go with you?”

“If you wish to, I will bring you back to my home with me. It is very different from the glimpses I caught of your own time, perhaps harsher but I believe that it would be freer as well.”

No expectation. No one who would go looking for the man Desmond Miles when he was a child who knew _how_ long in the past.

Could he do it? Could he dare to hope?

“… What’s your name?” looking up, Desmond watched his strange new hand reach forward and grasp at rough cloth, warmed by a fighting fit body. “I’m Desmond.”

If he was going to attempt to be someone else’s son, he didn’t need Miles anymore, did he? Didn’t need the name of someone who was never there when he needed him.

“I am Bayek of Siwa,” his smile was nice, and his eyes were kind, large hand cupping over the back of Desmond’s where it tangled in his tunic. “It’s good to meet you, Desmond.”

“Y-You too,” he stumbled uncharacteristically over the words, tongue feeling too big in his mouth as he felt heat spreading across his face. “You really don’t mind? I’m… I was older,” desperately fell from his mouth, voice childish in a way he couldn’t remember it being even when he _was_ a child. “You saw that, right? That I was older?”

“I saw the body of a man,” he agreed easily, without anything like rejection or rancor. “But the soul of a boy who grew too quickly. You are now as you need to be. I see that also.”

Perhaps it was because he was suddenly a child, because he had _died_ for humanity to live, because he was so very tired and so very lonely but…

“It’s okay if you regret it,” he told Bayek solemnly, and the hand on his thin shoulder tightened minutely. “It’s okay if you decide you don’t want me later. I can be difficult.”

Lifting his free hand towards his lip thoughtlessly, the sense memory of the flesh splitting and his father’s disapproval was a near tangible thing. He’d never been able to please his parents as a kid, not even his mother, really, and he feared not being enough for Bayek, as well.

Bayek ducked down to stare directly into his eyes with a seriousness that had Desmond’s thoughts screeching to a halt.

“If ever there was a thing I would not do, it would be to blame the blameless for my own decisions,” his voice was firm, but still gentle. “There are things in this world that cannot be changed, and I know my own mind. I will not regret you, Desmond.”

The way that he said his name was strange, it rolled differently, and he was pretty sure that he liked it.

“Okay,” taking a deep breath, he tried a smile up at Bayek. “Okay. So now what?”

And this man, this ancient Assassin who wanted him, smiled as the world around them turned gold and Senu cried overhead, the sound piercing and hopeful.

“Now, we go home, and we learn together what it means for the two of us to be family.”

While he was still unsure, still afraid of the expectations he’d fled from as a child the first time by running away, that he’d died at the hands of… Desmond dared to hope.

“Alright, let’s go home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick chapter, and I don't know what I'll get to update again because the world is ending, but expect it to happen eventually!
> 
> Grammar and typos, please let me know!

Bayek looked down at the nervous boy who was clenching his larger hand a little too tightly with those same nerves. Rolled up together and held in a satchel created by the power of thought in the Godly Space, was the child’s adult belongings.

The more he glanced down at the former-future Hidden One, the more that Desmond acted the child he looked. As he allowed himself to fall into the hope that had bound him to Bayek in the first place - his God Touched hand wrapped in gauze also created by thought - he lost burdens. There was a curious fondness for holding Bayek’s blade hand, clutching the two forefingers he still had, and the man found it oddly charming.

Looking at him, he could be the child of any Egyptian with a bit of Greek ancestry, mixed heritage, but dark enough that no one would question it. His hair was sleeker, more like Aya’s than Khemu’s and Bayek’s own, and it was cut raggedly like he’d had little time or care for personal appearance.

Considering the visions that he’d had after stepping into the God Space, Bayek could believe that of the weary, resigned young man that Desmond had been.

Squeezing the little hand covered in too many scars, he smiled down at the past-future Hidden One who had called out through time and space for a protector and sought _Bayek._

A man who had felt the life drain out of his own child and buried him with his own hands.

He was called upon to be a father again, a protector and guardian?

If it was to be so, then Bayek would do his very best to meet Desmond’s alarmingly few expectations and exceed them. From what reactions he’d seen so far, it likely wouldn’t be difficult, which was an awful thing to think about.

Likely, if ever the fates brought to him the chance to meet his new son’s blood father, only one of them would walk away, and Bayek had faced worse than mortals in the name of his child before.

So as he smiled down at this boy who had been a man so desperate for help that he had used a forbidden power to call for it, he burned that little smile in return into his memory. Before Desmond ducked his head, cheeks darkening with embarrassment at expressing affection when he felt he should not.

Some men believed that stoicism was the epitome of strength, that burying one’s feelings would keep them from getting hurt.

In Siwa, in Egypt, this was not so. Even in Greece, this was not so.

Stoicism in the face of tragedy when battle had fatigued you was one thing, but the inability to express joy? That was a foreign concept.

Shaking that little hand, Bayek grinned down at the suddenly startled Desmond.

“Come now!” he slid his arm easily around that thin frame to flip him up into his arms. “We must take our joy where we can, little blade!”

Squeaking amusingly as he was lifted, Desmond curled into his shoulder instinctively, twiggy arms wrapping around Bayek’s neck. Something bewildered but terribly fragile, the inklings of hope and burgeoning fondness shivering behind past rejection.

Truly, Bayek had much work to do to teach Desmond what it was to trust.

“You don’t have to carry me,” embarrassment didn’t stop the uptick to the corners of his lips, the widening of dark eyes as he curiously looked out over the temple room they’d emerged in. “I might be small now, but I can keep up.”

“But what if I like carrying you?” the Last Medjay returned, amused at the grumpy, uncertain look the boy sent him. “You are certainly lighter than my shield.”

Speaking of his weapons and armor, his was still tied to his current mount – the rest still stabled in Siwa, all affected by his presence in the same way that Senu had been – Aa Nekhtou. When they were close enough, his trusted eagle settled herself on the perch crafted for the saddle and the pale mare stepped forward to greet him. She was older than most beasts of burden, just as all his creatures were, caught in the gold haze of his bloodline.

It looked like she, too, had shed the years as Bayek had at answering Desmond’s call.

When he’d stepped through the door of the Old Ones, the kind before which he’d lost his last son, he had felt aches and pains disappear. A man older than he should be, who had survived more than most at 60, he had suddenly lost decades of physical toil. He’d stared as Senu’s scraggly feathers had flushed with light and sleeked again even as his own lined, arthritic hands had smoothed.

His hands had touched over his face and found the crags of age disappearing, swept away in the tide of light coming off of the unconscious man before him. At that time, Desmond’s now God Touched hand had been blackened and burned, a rictus of a thing ready to die.

As he watched, the golden God Orb in his devastated hand had shimmered like a mirage and then melted away to cover that ruined limb. It had sunk in with a clear, high sound like that of crystal chimes in the wealthy gardens of Alexandria, making something in Bayek hum in turn. The flesh had healed brilliantly like the horror of Midas’ touch, before sinking into his skin like water into the thirsty sands of the desert.

Yes, Bayek had seen many things in his long life, seen the workings of Gods and Old Ones alike, but he’d never seen something like this.

He had settled himself next to the young man sprawled on the ground whose face had been twisted into a grimace of silent agony. Senu had spent hours circling around them, scouting this God Space to keep them protected while Bayek sought understanding of this miracle before him.

When his hand first touched him the world _tipped_.

There were buildings made of glass and metal, roaring metal chariots carrying lights that moved swifter than a ship at sea during full squall. He saw the rich living over the poor with startling more frequency than existed in Egypt, though there were people who held such luxury, they were few and far between in his homeland. Most lived as others did, with little beyond what was necessary, and a few trinkets inherited or created to sate other needs.

Greed had exceeded itself as time passed, it would seem.

He watched as this young man who had called through the ages to him struggled as a barkeep, as he made a place for himself but was always wary. He witnessed his capture and then enslavement for the legacy carried in his blood, that which called to the golden haze in Bayek’s own. How the machines of Desmond’s time had reached backwards through him to watch his ancestors, to find that which they had tried to safeguard from their assailants.

His Hidden Ones had stretched far, _far_ farther than he had expected them to. Than he had hoped they would be needed for.

They had changed, as all things did, but he hoped at their core they had tried to stay true to the tenets that Aya and he had created all those years ago.

He had watched as Desmond had learned the ways of the Old Ones, Those Who Came Before, the people called Isu. He watched as more and more of his spirit was crushed under the weight of expectation and the resignation that he had no choice, despite everyone around him demanding it of him. To choose.

To lead, when they had only ever taught him to follow.

Bayek felt sorrow and a heavy, cold fury as he watched this young man, this _child_ walk to his death and realize that no matter what he chose, his people would fall. That those few bright points would be snuffed out by either death or the subjugation of self by the lingering spirit of an Old One. How he chose, and didn’t know if he made the right one and suffered for it under the rage of one who should have passed long ago.

It was then, that Bayek himself had solidified his choice. Had firmed himself to be what was needed and to _do_ what others would not, despite the knowledge they had born.

Even though he had lost his Khemu, his sweet little boy, he had not stopped being a father.

He would take this one under his wing for as long as he was needed, and he would take burdens too broad for such thin shoulders.

He was Bayek of Siwa, the Last Medjay, the father of the Hidden Ones; this was the least he could do, being the father of Desmond, also.

~*~

The weight of Desmond was less than the weight of Khemu had been, but it was comforting to have in his arms all the same.

The boy was seated before him on his saddle, slumped comfortably against Bayek, nerves faded as Senu settled on her perch to allow questing little fingers to admire her. Such a vain bird, his partner, but he could not fault her for enjoying her renewed youth in much the same way he appreciated the lack of ache in his knees. The way that his back did not protest every little movement and his once wrenched elbow did not need to be tightly bound.

“What language are we speaking?” was asked curiously as Desmond looked up at him from under his new hood. “I didn’t know it before I woke up.”

Learning languages in one’s sleep seemed an interesting skill, and Bayek huffed at the thought amusedly. He’d always been quite quick at picking up dialects and languages, perhaps that was something they had in common.

“This is Egyptian,” Bayek explained patiently. “It is the most spoken language in our region, though some speak the Grecian dialects.”

“Greek?” little fingers tickled under Senu’s beak and her eyes narrowed in pleasure, bringing a shy smile to scarred lips. “I don’t know Greek. Well, not yet, anyway. I can speak English, Italian, and Arabic with any reliability. A bit of French and Spanish, but… you don’t know what most of those are, do you?”

“I do not,” amused despite himself, Bayek patted the skinny leg in front of him, knees and shins dotted with pale scars. “But I could perhaps teach you Greek, if you would be willing to part with at least _one_ of your languages.”

Dark eyes blinked up at him, taking in the smile on Bayek’s face and relaxing that little bit of gathered tension that had settled in thin shoulders. This was a child who needed ease and acceptance, who had been on the wrong end of discipline and punishment more often than not. Desmond would punish himself more than Bayek ever could, and he had to balance the scales in some way.

Despite the nerves that hovered behind his eyes, Desmond’s hands stayed still and limp in his lap, no attempt to defend himself despite all the training Bayek _knew_ he’d had.

It spoke for itself.

“I mean… I don’t know why you’d want to…” warmth filled little cheeks again as the boy ducked his head once again in embarrassed pleasure, bewildered by his own feelings. “But sure.”

“It is a good way to know someone,” he said easily, pressing the arm around Desmond, the one with the hand holding the reins, closer to him for comfort. “How they teach and how they learn. It makes it easier for us to know how to stand with each other when we know the ways that we can make our needs known.”

Not that Bayek didn’t have his own reasons for learning these languages, for learning the places that they came from. If Desmond ever asked him directly, he would answer honestly, but as it was, an idea was just a grain of sand in the desert. When he found his methods, then he would plot the oasis where others could find it.

Senu ruffled her feathers at the lack of attention and lifted off into the sky, her comforting, familiar cry echoing across the dunes around them.

No dangers would befall them under her watchful gaze.

_All things in time_ , he glanced down at his much younger hands, unlined by age even if his scars lingered. _And I have a feeling we have nothing but time._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything should slow down update wise soon, so here you go!
> 
> Grammar and Typos, please! Let me know!

It turned out, that it was startlingly easy to fall into rhythm with Bayek.

To learn how to be family with him.

Everyone they ran into would wave and call out to them like Bayek was a local legend – which he could be, Desmond didn’t know – and they gave Desmond himself warm smiles. He didn’t generally know what to do with all of that freely given friendliness, and so he’d take shelter in Bayek’s arms like the child he now was. Women would cluck good naturedly and the men would hum and then ask the old Assassin about such and such pass and how the bandit situation was.

It took them two days to travel to Siwa, simply because Bayek kept stopping to help people out, hood up and sand scarf over his face. A veritable army all on his own from what Desmond had glimpsed of the combat, no matter how quickly the altercations ended.

The one time that Desmond had automatically reached for one of the many blades decorating the gentle Aa Nekhtou, Senu had swiveled her head around to stare at him severely. Getting scolded by a bird was new, but it was better than some things that Desmond had had to deal with before he’d died. She’d kept her head turned around to look at him with suspicion until the last raider was dealt with before chirping pleasantly and taking off again.

It certainly explained why she’d landed at all; she was babysitting him.

Perhaps he should have been offended by the thought of getting watched by a bird, but Desmond couldn’t help but feel oddly touched.

There was a connection between Bayek and Senu that he could see with the Eagle Vision, and it glittered gold like a mirage. There was a weaker connection between Bayek and Aa Nekhtou, little branches tethered off into the distance, all towards where Bayek had told him Siwa was, told of more.

When he looked at Bayek, he blazed like the sun, lined in silver but made of gold.

There was a tether reaching between the two of _them_ as well, making a careful connection that Desmond found himself a little desperate for.

As if summoned by the thought, something reached out from _Desmond_ to latch onto that thin line, solidifying it. It settled something inside of him, some unnamed fear that he hadn’t even known he had amongst all the others. This was the first time he was seeing such a thing as this, the connection between things.

He didn’t want to lose Bayek, now that he had him.

None of the other Assassin’s he’d lived had had abilities like this, had bound themselves to other living beings, and he wondered if it was simply a facet of his new dad.

“Can you see it?” he asked one night, curled up in Bayek’s cloak. “The lines that connect you to things?”

“Ah, that,” the man turned their dinner over the fire, rubbing salt and dried herbs against the meat. “I could not when I was younger, but now I can, when I look. When I was young, it was easy to find animals and materials I sought. When I grew older, and hunted more than just for meat, I could find my enemies or allies when needed. Senu is my eyes from a distance, and before I met _you_ , she was the brightest light in my life.”

Flushing, Desmond buried his face in the cloak for a moment before looking up at Bayek’s fond, scarred features.

He smiled, and it felt he might burst with sudden happiness that he didn’t know how to handle. All of this casual affection, he didn’t really know what to do with it, didn’t know how to give it back or accept it.

“All the people I know of only knew how to see targets more than anything else, and they definitely didn’t connect to a companion like you have,” Senu hopped over to him, stirring the sand slightly to bop him on the cheek with her beak. “But it’s probably where the ability got its name. In my time it’s called Eagle Vision.”

The eagle in front of him seemed to preen and Desmond couldn’t help but grin fondly and reach out a hand to pet her gently. She was big, and her feathers covered ropy muscles that held her aloft and allowed her dive for her prey.

“An interesting name,” there was laughter in his voice, and Bayek made a popping noise that had the eagle ruffling her feathers. “My family has been partnered with birds of prey for generations.”

Something inside of him perked up and then deflated as he realized that it was probably some Isu bloodline bullshit. The _one_ kind that he hadn’t inherited from his many skilled ancestors who were significantly better at everything than he was.

“Perhaps I can teach you?” Bayek mused, considering. “Khemu, my son, he did not have the sense in the way I do. My once-wife, she could share a connection with Senu with me after several years, but you are much stronger in the gold haze than she, even with all her skill.”

Heat once again returned to his cheeks even as the man pulled off a piece of cooked meat for Desmond to eat. When he crawled out of his pile of cloak and bedroll, Bayek pulled him against his side. The desert at night was cold and there was nothing to block the wind around them from pulling what warmth they did hold from their flesh. Bayek’s horse was laid down behind them, a wind block from there, and Senu was hopping around begging for scraps she didn’t need.

She’d killed and eaten her dinner long before they had.

“But…”

“I do not think blood has everything to do with it,” he was told while he juggled hot, juicy meat that was less greasy than he was used to. “And many things are possible if you have the will to see them through. I have seen many impossible things, and Gods willing, I will see many more. Teaching you this would be one of the most possible things I’ve ever done!”

Squinting up as Bayek laughed at his own words, Desmond considered that time travel and de-aging could count as impossible things too.

“Would it be Senu?” he asked curiously, that same unfamiliar hope and fragile desire for something for himself blooming. “That I would learn with?”

Golden eyes looked up at him from picking up a bone and tossing it back and forth to amuse herself, and she cocked her head consideringly before blinking and looking away.

“I do not see why you could not learn with her first,” Bayek said easily, tossing the scraps unused and unusable into the fire. “Before we seek out a companion for you.”

Something inside of him jumped excitedly at the thought of having something for him alone, without the need to share it. Something that was from him, _for him,_ rather than castoffs of ancestors who didn’t need it anymore. That this would be something that Bayek would give to him simply because he’d asked, rather than as something useful for a future mission.

There was no mission here. No great, overarching goal that needed completion.

There was just helping people who needed it, protecting those that could not protect themselves. That… that was something that he could maybe get behind.

When Bayek wasn’t helping people, he traveled and taught people things, he learned. He’d climbed the pyramids – which were still standing! – and he traveled most of the continent that he could alone.

Desmond thinks that he could like living like that, because at the end of it, Bayek always returned to Siwa, which he loved. A home always waiting for him.

“I think I’d like that,” he mumbled around a yawn. This young body tired easily at night, unlike his previous insomnia. “Having a Senu.”

That warm fingerless hand passed over his head and he was soothed as Bayek settled him to his cloak nest once again. That large body curled up behind him, a bulwark against the enemies that might come at them from behind.

“I think your future companion would enjoy you as well.”

“Hmm.”

Warm, full, and protected, Desmond drifted off into golden dreams of flying on another’s wings.

~*~

Skidding to a halt in front of Bayek he swung around to slide under his cloak as the man huffed and smothered a laugh.

“Dez’mon!” cried the little girl who chased him, lisping through the gap in her teeth just slightly. “Dez’mon come back! Dezzah!”

The pitter patter of little feet on the packed earth of the village roads spelt his doom, and he climbed up Bayek’s back, hidden by the cloak. If she saw his feet she’d know he was there, she’d know how to drag him off for more games that involved him yanking her out of hyena’s dens. Or from finding an alligator and then provoking it into eating her because she thought it would be fun.

Her father, Chenzira, tended to complain about the Gods punishing him for his own misadventures as a child, and Bayek would laugh at him. Chenzira’s wife and their lover, who had met him while he was exploring Alexandria and kept him from getting killed for accidentally offending someone, also laughed. He had a habit of finding trouble when all he wanted was adventure, and Satsebau had taken after him with a vigor he lamented.

When Bayek had first introduced him to the odd little family a week after he’d gotten settled in the house, it had been… interesting.

Upon seeing Desmond, Satsebau had immediately shrieked and then leapt for him screaming about friendship and adventures. Bayek had simply patted him on the head with an amused smile while the boy was frozen in shock, and then walked into the house, pulling his scarf down as he did.

While part of him had really wanted to listen in on the rather animated conversation going on inside of Chenzira’s home, he’d been trying to pry Satse off of him.

She was like a particularly sunshiny barnacle that would wake him up in the middle of the night and ask if he’d ever seen a hippopotamus tear someone in half. Both terrifying and endearing and she was _literally_ eight years old. Was this just how children _were_ in the time of Cleopatra and Pharaohs? Ready to watch people get eaten for entertainment?

Made him appreciate reading and the internet more, if he was being honest. He didn’t really have a scope for normal childhoods, but he was generally sure that in his time, it hadn’t involved _actual_ maiming, and just TV and video games.

Still, she liked spending time with Desmond while he figured out his new life while Bayek was helping someone. She could be quiet and liked to learn makeshift chess and how to find good handholds for climbing.

If she was going to be adventuring anyway, might as well let her know how to do it properly so she didn’t fall to her death.

So, with his toes hooked behind the straps holding Bayek’s greaves in place and his fingers clinging to the leather belt that held his quiver in place, he avoided his new best friend. They’d been foisted off on each other over the last few months enough times that he could comfortably say that she held that spot.

Sometimes he missed Shaun and Rebecca, but they really only were around him out of necessity. Friends of necessity, he’d learned, weren’t always the truest to the meaning of the word. Satse was more interested in what Desmond had to say than telling him what to do than they had ever been. Sure, she could ramble forever, but she also let him speak without interruption most of the time.

“Bayek, have you seen Dez’mon?” he could almost hear her suspicious squinting. She hadn’t found him like this yet, but she was quick. “We were going to go swimming!”

“Ah,” the understanding in Bayek’s exhalation made Desmond’s fingers and toes curl a little more tightly. His wrapped arm suddenly felt intensely itchy. “Well, you see, Desmond and I have plans for the day, since I have returned from market. Perhaps he simply forgot to mention that we were going to practice archery?”

Unable to help himself, he twitched in interest.

Bayek’s multi-shots made him think of how envious his other ancestors would have been, and he’d curiously watched the man puzzle over new ways of doing it. The different ways to coat the arrows was interesting, and Bayek had started allowing him to help carve new ones and set the heads in place.

“Archery?” he could almost feel her vibrating in place. “Can I come?”

“Maybe in the future,” Bayek allowed, letting that sudden tension in Desmond’s chest ease. “But I would like to spend some time with my son. Speak to your parents, and we will see in the future. Perhaps _they_ wish to teach you something?”

Considering that Chenzira’s Nubian wife and their lover used to be gladiators, that was more probable than one might think.

“Okay! Thank you, Bayek!”

Those little feet ran away and then the world was a dizzy place as his new dad flipped him over his shoulder from his back in one smooth movement. Laughing loudly despite himself, his heart thumped delightedly at the sound of dad doing the same as a reflection of his own happiness.

“Are you happy to be free of your friend, little blade?” huffing as he was settled in Bayek’s arms, cloak padding the pinching metal bits of his armor. “There is no need to learn archery if you do not wish to, however.”

“I want to!” he blurted, feeling that odd but comforting shadow of Senu above them in the sky. “I want to learn. I know the mechanics, but I’ve never actually used it myself.”

“Then we will do so!”

Desmond wriggled and squirmed as Bayek played his three fingers against his ribs to tickle him, stopping when the sensation neared discomfort.

“I do believe I have gathered all the ingredients you need for that _pasta_ you were speaking of, as well, little blade.”

“Oh _sweet_! Looks like I’m cooking tonight, _Baba_.”

“It does indeed.”

Curling his arms around Bayek’s neck and leaning his head down against the black embroidered hood he was currently wearing, Desmond basked. Bayek had a habit of covering his face when others were around unless they were with Satse’s family. He didn’t know if it was a personal quirk or if it was just something that was a holdover from being a Medjay and now a Hidden One, but he didn’t mind it.

If Altaïr had been able to meet Bayek he would have probably exploded, and it was an entertaining thought, honestly.

It had been a little bit rough, at first, to realize that Bayek was different than practically anyone else he’d ever been around. That he was more patient and kinder than any other Assassin that he’d seen through the veil of his own genome.

While he couldn’t put Bayek through calling him _Papo,_ like Khemu had before him, he thought that the Arabic word for dad was close enough.

It was what he was, after all.

Desmond’s new dad.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexios has joined the party~ ... and Kassandra is a boss who intimidates us all, her biceps admired by many.
> 
> Grammar and typos, please let me know!

To be honest, he’d had worse introductions.

It wasn’t the _first_ time that he’d been kicked through a wall, but it was certainly the most thoroughly.

If he hadn’t already been half in love with the man, that probably would have started the whole process, a good hard punt through a solid wall. As he wheezed on the ground for a moment, staring up into the lightening sky with dawn, Alexios was simply glad that he was wearing his chest plate.

That had _hurt_.

How _invigorating_!

Honestly, if he wasn’t considering strangling Kassandra the next time he saw her, he’d thank her smug face profusely.

As it was, he had to roll out of the way of getting impaled by his own spear.

~*~  
On one of the days that he visited Kassandra at her estate with her retinue of terrifying Amazonian lovers and dainty, sharp minded artists, he felt a _tug._

The merchant widows had flocked to her and the following of women warriors she had taken to training, and somehow it had turned into a flower symposium. He felt more fear walking into these walls than he ever had when fighting Athenians on the open seas or when facing creatures of legend.

The odd way that his equally as unnerving little sister had twisted her brows, however, told him that it wasn’t he alone that had felt it.

“Someone is looking for something,” she told him bluntly, standing from where she had been running her scarred fingers through Sophia’s pale locks. Her round belly still shocked him even after she’d told him her plans for progeny. “And they are reaching too far.”

“Excuse me?” as always, when this strange God stuff was brought into question, Alexios was baffled and alarmed. “Looking for something?”

Stepping forward, she touched her hand to his chest with a frown that rarely sat on her features these days, not after years of relearning herself. He felt a pinch of unhappiness that whatever nonsense he’d gotten himself into this time had been what set it upon her features anew. They were both of them older than they’d thought they’d ever live to be, but time hadn’t quite touched the siblings in the way it did others.

Silver was just starting to be apparent in their hair and lines sticking at the corners of their eyes and mouths, but they had lived for nearly eighty years like this. Being God Touched made things difficult, sometimes, especially when people decided that they wanted to fight or use the Eagle Barer of old.

Alexios was tired of people trying to kill him for a time period that was blip on the map of his life, honestly. There wasn’t anything to fight for other than money these days, and he mostly just gave it to Kassandra so that she could fund her schools. It kept the less advantaged students able to room and board when otherwise they would need to work alongside their scholastic or martial studies.

Not good for growing minds and bodies, his sister had ranted at him many a time.

“Yes,” she brought his mind back towards the odd tugging heat in his chest. “They are looking for something – no, some _one_. Hmm,” her eyes flashed gold in the way only he could see. “They want… protection. A… child, I believe.”

The still body of a girl long dead that hadn’t even been his own blood shivered to the forefront of his mind and Alexios balked. That tugging intensified for a moment before settling into a low, steady hum he could ignore if he so wished, like a bruise.

“Ah,” one of her powerful hands supported her gravid belly as she raised her brows at him. “You’ve dammed the flow and there is – yes, someone else has answered the call. Willingly and without recourse.”

Despite feeling a slight inkling of disappointment – in both himself, and his lack of necessity – he also felt relief at not being the sole respite of this child calling for help. Swallowing against the slight surge of guilt at denying this stranger, reaching from who knew where, Alexios glanced to the side at one of the terraces covered in flowers.

“Will they be alright?” he asked his sister, who knew so much more of these magics than he did. “If I do not answer?”

“The one who stepped forward is most capable,” golden eyes looked up at him, and he felt his vision shift in a way that meant his were reflecting hers. “He has stood on the stage of the Gods and Old Ones and stepped off the winner. He has suffered, grown and taught without reward or asking for such. He is a good man.”

Outside, Ikaros cried in the sky, sending a shiver down his spine.

Curiosity bubbled up in his chest at her words, but he held them back. With denying the call he had foresworn any interaction with the ones who were Champion and Championed. Whatever his second thought might be, the natural fear of another small body he could do nothing but bury after the fact had halted this.

“This is good, then,” he stepped back, waving a hand in the air to clear it. “I will go to this island and find your lost student, sister.”

“Hmm.”

Those strange gold eyes they both saw the world through at times stared at him for a long moment, before they shifted, and hazel returned to where it belonged.

“We will see,” she said as she turned back towards the woman waiting on the pallet for her. Sophia had grabbed a scroll to peruse since she wasn’t being pampered, and smiled up at his sister, who softened in turn. “Travel safely, brother.”

Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.

Why did she always have to send him off with _omens_? Was this continued bad luck a trick of the Fates or was she just going to forever come up with ways to torment him since she’d missed the chance when they were children?

Knowing her, it was likely to be a little bit of both.

~*~

When he returned from somehow dismantling another cult that Kassandra’s wayward student had been kidnapped by, he was nearly an uncle.

It had been months since he’d last seen her and she looked… happy. Fat with life, but he would _never_ dare to tell her that even if she could likely sense it, from the way she eyed him. According the midwife she should be on bedrest in the last month of her pregnancy, but his sister had never known the meaning of limits.

“Sit,” her heavy hand hit his shoulder and he went down with it next to her on the pavilion she had set up to watch a meteor shower. “Eat.”

Taking the food shoved into his hands, he mused at the numerous scholars who were all down below with various star maps. Arguing with one another over the timing of the event and how Kassandra had known it would happen.

Honestly, even Kassandra didn’t always understand how she knew the things she did. The God Orb was a strange thing, and she’d held it for a long time.

Licking his fingers clean of the lamb he turned back to his sister, who was regarding him with that look he’d learned not to like forty years ago.

“Oh no,” he set his plate aside, prepared to launch himself down to the ground. “Whatever it is, no!”

“I will show you something,” she stated easily, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You will witness it, and then you will decide.”

Glancing frantically around himself, he saw women lounging around, pointedly not looking at him when his sister got her vice grip around his wrist.

_Ah gamoto._

Sighing in aggrieved affection, he settled himself once more, unwilling to let his heavily pregnant sister tumble off a balcony with him, no matter that she could probably kick his ass. They were pretty evenly matched most times they sparred, considering no one was actually trying to kill anyone these days. Still, she tended towards putting her body under unneeded strain, a holdover from her awful training as a child.

Alexios could admit that his childhood had been… unusual, but despite his hardships, he hadn’t been conditioned in the same way.

“Alright, alright!” she stared at him flatly. “What is it you want to show me?”

Her hand released his wrist to press against his chest, drawing his attention to the low hum that had accompanied him since he’d last been there. It pulsed, sometimes, oddly comforting to acknowledge in the quiet moments where he was alone, surrounded by people who lived and died so much quicker than he.

“What –“

Gold and silver washed through him and –

There was a man knelt in front of a boy who had seen too much hurt. His hands were dark and steady, a finger missing on the one the boy grasped uncertainly. He smiled down at the scarred child and he was _breathtaking_ for all the resolve there, the strength.

The child smiled and it was like a parting in a summer squall, light shining down to mark the destination of a journey. Time had no meaning as the gentle, dangerous, man who carried more weapons on himself than even Alexios tended to, taught the boy kindness. He watched as the man ventured forth to help people and follow the trails of golden light to save lives. He watched at the child waited for the man to return and matching smiles, one open and compassionate and one shivering and fearfully hopeful, spread across dark faces.

Gentleness, in hands that so easily slit the throats of murderers and rapists, that would find lost kittens for random children. Compassion, in a weary gaze that watched men plead for their lives when they had shortened too many.

Water, in an emotional scape which had been barren for so long.

A hesitant request or an absent word, and the man – the _father_ – would easily step out to get this little thing for the son. He watched trust bloom between a once grieving man and a discarded child and Alexios _wanted_.

The hum in his chest grew stronger as he watched the child watch his father. As broad, dark skinned shoulders scattered with scars and bruises were wiped down with a damp cloth. The boy ran to help the man wrap his ribs for a night of sleep and accepted the comforting smile that was given to him with nervous affection and worry.

He watched them both blaze golden and the boy _dreamed_ –

With a sharp inhalation, Alexios pulled away from Kassandra, hand lifting to his face to check for dampness beneath his eyes. To press his heart back into his chest and the gold back from his gaze so that the blue from below didn’t send his mind spiraling.

“Kassandra,” he felt choked by his emotions, too many to count. “What – _why –”_

“Do you remember, the last time that you were happy?” she asked him, leaning back against one of the warriors who had positioned herself there, the only sign of weariness she’d allow. “Because I cannot remember a time when you were.”

“I –” blinking rapidly, he tried not to think of her sliding her blade through his lover’s throat. He loved Kassandra, he did, but for a brief moment he had _hated_. “I have been happy, sister!”

Phoebe, and the little light she had brought to him, that sarcastic little imp who loved to make him laugh more than anything. And take his coin.

“You have not,” she denied. “I know that now. You have been content. You live on moments of joy, gladdened that I have found _my_ happiness, but you are _not_ happy, Alexios.”

Heart in his throat, he thought of the playful grin that the man had given to the boy – the boy who had called for _Alexios_ and he had not answered – and the slowly returned expression. He thought of the way that the boy would curl into the bulk of his father and take shelter, comfort being spread to both. He thought of the way the boy concentrated on the arrows in his hands as a little bow was held out to him, the seriousness he regarded it with but the light in his eyes. He thought of the pride in pretty kohl rimmed amber eyes and the care in battle worn hands as he corrected his son’s positioning.

“I tried,” he whispered bleakly, unable to hold out against her earnest, solemn gaze. “I tried to be happy, but everything weighs so _heavily_ here. Everything is a reminder of things I have lost.”

“It has been worse, since I told you I wanted a child,” Kassandra’s words hit clinically, but that much beloved softness tilted her eyes. “And every time you look at me you see someone long dead.”

Flinching, he looked away.

Children were… they hurt, to be around. Alexios had always been good with children, and when he’d had his mission, even in the time after Phoebe died, he’d thought about adopting, or finding a woman who would arrange with him. After, however, with Brasidas dead by his sister’s hand, when they had carefully talked around the topic of becoming _something_ more, and what that might entail…

He’d left those thoughts behind.

Kassandra was his family, and he’d wanted her to be enough. He’d forgiven her for the actions the cult had done through her, and he didn’t want to go back to the aching wound he’d once had. He didn’t want to dream of his own hand sliding blade through his lover’s flesh, gain the sense memory of his death at _his own_ hands in her place.

“It is not you,” he assured her as best he could. “It is not your child. It is my own mind that foils me in this.”

“I did not think it was,” she told him in her matter of fact manner, even as the woman behind her squeezed her shoulder in comfort. “But I would have you happy _somewhere and somewhen_ else if you would simply _be_ as such.”

Wait, some _when_?

“Just where and when were they?”

“Egypt, nearly four hundred years from now.”

The air stalled in his throat for a moment and he cleared his throat twice to make sure the he could speak properly.

“Excuse me?”

~*~

And this, as well as Kassandra threatening to toss him off a cliff while in full labor, is what had him stepping through the door she created with the God Orb.

How he had the delightful experience of meeting the father by the man destroying a wall with his body because he woke him up. For all of half a second, he got to watch the way that sunrise burnished brown skin gold and the way that kohl shimmered where it was still smeared around amber eyes.

Before the man quite assuredly tried to _murder him._

Definitely the bane of big brothers everywhere, was meddling little sisters with arcane abilities who had _zero_ compunctions against using them on you. Especially when it was meant in the way stated that it was _for his own happiness_.

Yes, he would never fall for that trick again.

Still, the man looked truly lovely when willing to maim in the protection of his son, who was running down from the house towards the little plateau beneath the broken wall. That scarred little face was scrunched up in a fixture of alarm and worry mixed with a wry resignation that was unusual on a child.

“Kassandra you little –”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexios has a bad time, but he's into it. Bayek is unsurprisingly level headed and Desmond panics his way into emotions.
> 
> Grammar and typos, please let me know if you see any problems!

Desmond had accidentally done a thing.

If he was being honest, that was how he did most things in his life; accidentally. Every good thing, no matter how small it had been, had been stumbled upon at a completely inopportune moment. Dying to get to Bayek was the biggest one he could think of off the top of his head, but finding his way to the bar was a close second.

Every bad thing that had ever happened to him seemed like it had been meticulously planned before he tripped into it.

What was happening now with his _Baba_ trying to kill the man that Desmond had helped _yeet_ through time, was definitely one of those accidents. He was still holding out on the _good_ bit, but definitely not what he had been expecting from the woman that had appeared in his dream.

She had been tall and built like she was used to breaking skulls for breakfast, a mirrored scar on her face that made him uncomfortable to see. Was she one of his ancestors, too? The fact that she’d been pregnant hadn’t taken away from the aura of threat that she exuded at all and had perhaps even added to it.

Everything she’d been saying had seemed reasonable too, and yet somehow it had ended up with a giant man trying desperately not to get impaled by Bayek.

All things considered… he was doing alright. Even if he did look kind of dazed every time he looked at Bayek, as if he were getting kicked through that wall all over again.

When the tall scruffy man in the Grecian armor made a high-pitched noise of worry when that wicked looking spear brushed near his groin on another roll, Desmond decided he should probably interfere. As amusing as all this was, he really didn’t want to have to watch his very deadly, very protective father maim the poor guy.

Senu shrieked angrily from above – which wasn’t unusual – before something else cried out in startled answer.

Two eagles fell out of the sky, his bird-sitter pinning the larger, startled looking brown eagle to the ground and trying to rip its eyes out. And throat. And feathers.

“Ikaros!” the man cried out, suddenly intensely more invested in doing more than dodging.

Greek fell too fast from his lips for Desmond to follow with the few lessons that they’d managed, Bayek picking up Arabic significantly faster for some reason.

“Wait, wait wait wait _Senu!_ ” Desmond stuttered out, running towards the bird and risking his fingers to yank her off. “Don’t kill it!”

She thrashed angrily, hissing disturbingly in his hold and nearly wrenching his arms out of their sockets before she settled. Vibrating like she was ready to fucking _annihilate_ the larger foreign eagle for just _daring_ to fly in the same sky as her.

“Desmond,” his dad called. “You know to stay away!”

“Don’t kill him _Baba_ ,” swinging around after a moment of staring at the eagle, Ikaros probably, stumble to standing in that ungainly way of birds, Desmond begged, voice shaking. He’d messed up. He’d messed up and _this_ would be what made Bayek angry at him. “It’s my fault! I did this!”

Shoving the larger Greek back and sweeping down to knock his legs out from under him, Bayek looked at him with cool amber eyes that thawed quickly. This time, perhaps sensing the mood, the man stayed down where he was, taking his eagle into hand when he hobbled over, looking equally as stunned and slightly bloodied.

“How do you mean, little blade?” complete trust stood before him, no anger or frustration. Just… acceptance. “Where did you bring this man from?”

Greek flew from the man’s lips and Bayek hissed something back at him that made heat rise into stubbled cheeks before he looked down at his Ikaros again.

“I was dreaming, there was a woman. She looked like him and she was asking if I had room for another set of hands and…” Desmond remembered what she’d shown him. The little grave that the man had dug grieving, the years of monotony, blood and death and money; moments of respite with family that soothed fleetingly but darkened the bruises. “And I said yes.”

He’d _thought_ it was just a dream, but obviously even that was complicated for him now.

“Hmm,” his father turned back to the man and spoke smooth, quick Greek at him and the man perked up before deflating with a sigh of exasperation.

His voice was beleaguered and almost musical to listen to, even if Desmond couldn’t understand the words he said.

“He says it was his sister, Kassandra, and that she loves to meddle,” the cold, vicious murder that had defined every line of Bayek, even in a plain tunic, smoothed out into good humor once again. “As is the way with all siblings, I’d imagine.”

“I thought that was a younger sister thing?” Desmond asked curiously, because he clearly remembered the crow’s feet and gray in her hair, and this man had neither. He looked perhaps a little younger than Bayek, if not around the same age. “She looked older than him and _really_ pregnant.”

Bayek took a breath through suddenly slack lips and looked at the man out of the corner of his eye, more rapid-fire Greek sliding out of his mouth. The larger man, still sat on the ground and red faced, looked up sharply before his eyes widened and he lifted a hand to his face and _clearly_ swore even if he didn’t know what the exact word meant.

Seeing this, Desmond was confused but his dad just laughed in delight, as if at some great joke only he knew the punchline to. More Greek followed as the man stared up at the Last Medjay, jaw working until he cleared his throat and spoke again.

“His name is Alexios,” Bayek told Desmond, an amused quirk to his lips and the light of life rather than death back in his kohl lined eyes. “And I do believe that he will be a most _interesting_ addition to our household.”

Those gold-dark hands reached out and took the still ruffled Senu from Desmond’s now aching arms and settled her easily on his forearm. Despite not wearing his armor or even a leather glove, he showed no signs of discomfort at her talons digging into his already lined flesh. His other hand, his Assassin – no Hidden – hand reached out to muss the still sleep messy hair on top of Desmond’s head.

Scowling, but allowing the sign of affection with a mixture of relief and warmth in his chest, Desmond looked over at this Alexios once again.

The man was babying his eagle and tutting as the large raptor chirped at him mournfully and flapped its wings despondently. Wow, what a drama queen.

“Is the eagle’s name Ikaros?” he asked curiously.

Chuckling, Bayek turned back to eye the large Grecian, who felt the gaze and twitched, hazel eyes wide and a twist to his mouth that said he was used to laughing. The man, Alexios, cleared his throat before looking down at the dramatic eagle again, murmuring something quietly, features rueful.

“Why don’t you ask him, little blade?” looking entirely too amused now that he didn’t have to murder the problem, his _Baba_ patted him on the head and gave him a gentle push. “It’s a good time to practice your Greek, even if his is perhaps more archaic and… less cultured, than one would expect.”

“Less cultured?”

“Hmm, he’s a mercenary,” the Medjay shrugged without care. “His vocabulary is perhaps more colorful than my own, but he will sound like a noble with the older dialect… like a particularly stupid and crass one, but a noble.”

Hand shooting up to cover his mouth as he grinned at the unexpected words, Desmond shot a curious look towards Alexios. Bayek settled his hand briefly on the back of his neck, support, an acknowledgement of his presence if he was needed.

It gave him the strength to step forward.

~*~

The next few days involved helping Alexios fix the wall that he’d been thrown through and learning creative insults in Spartan Greek. Bayek had demanded that the _misthios_ attend to the mess he had made with a flat mouth and a quirk to his brow. The larger man had kind of stared dumbly for a minute before stuttering out ascent and nodding, hand rubbing at the back of his neck ruefully.

Desmond thought it was kind of hilariously amusing that the Greek seemed to trip over himself to do whatever it was that Bayek told him to do. He’d watch him, too, when Bayek was moving around and doing his own chores or sitting teaching Desmond something.

Alexios didn’t interfere in lessons, didn’t say anything unless he was asked specifically to join, and Desmond thought it was because he didn’t want to come between them.

Which was… Okay, so, Desmond hadn’t told Bayek _everything_ of why he’d helped dream Alexios into the future with Kassandra’s help. It wasn’t a bad thing, but he didn’t know how his new dad would react if he knew that he’d wanted someone to watch _Bayek’s_ back since Desmond couldn’t.

While he was one of the most skilled fighters he’d ever seen, in any life, Bayek was still only one man who frequently fought many. It wasn’t often that he came home injured, and usually it was just bruising here and there, sometimes it was a graze along a knee, a rib, his already few fingered hand. But what it _could be_ is what made him worry.

Desmond didn’t want to lose this still so very new thing. His family. His father.

So maybe he’d been thinking about that when he’d come across Kassandra in his dreams, someone who could make sure that Bayek came home. Who would care enough to make sure that he did; for both Desmond’s and Bayek’s sakes? Apparently the power of the Apple his hand had eaten – he’d never get over that – and the power of the one that Kassandra had held was enough.

Enough to pull Alexios a few centuries into the future, where he was steadily getting better at household chores. It was definitely different to have a guy who was somewhere in the mid six-foot region in their house, when Bayek had seemed so large before but was a few inches shorter and slimmer.

Weren’t people supposed to be _smaller_ in the past? Was it just the Isu genes in them that built them like this?

Shaun would have gone insane trying to figure it out, and that was without the intact sphynxes and new pyramids to look at. All the temples that _weren’t_ Isu touched and all the ones that _were_.

Still, with Alexios as his new babysitter, it meant that Senu could go out with Bayek and he didn’t have to worry as much. Not what he’d been aiming for when he’d dreamed it, but it was better than it had been. It seemed to help ease something in his dad as well, to have someone with thumbs and a huge ass spear around to keep an eye on Desmond.

Desmond assumed it meant that the Hidden One wasn’t rushing through things to get back to him faster now that he had someone to protect him.

A warming thought, if a sheepish one, because all of this was _his_ fault in the first place, and he’d over complicated things with time travel again. Why was that a thing he could do?

Rubbing at the new leather glove and guard that Bayek had fashioned for him, Desmond wondered if anyone else had as weird of luck as he did.

“What shall we scrounge up for dinner tonight, Desmond?” Alexios asked in a mixture of Greek and Egyptian, his own learning of _their_ language spotty at best. “Since Ikaros is done _cowering_ with Senu gone to play _kyn_ _ig_ _ós_ with Bayek, _we_ could go hunting if you’d like?”

“As long as there aren’t any hyenas.”

“… why is that always your stipulation?”

Grinning at the man’s bewilderment, Desmond ducked his head before shrugging and running to grab his bow. His aim was pretty good, but as a kid of _maybe_ seven or eight he didn’t have a lot of physical strength or stamina. Practicing a quick draw and release was about all he could do even with the softer wood that his learner’s bow was made of.

“When you meet Satse, you will understand,” he told the man solemnly. “There’s nothing else I can say to explain it.”

Tugging on the cloth under his pteryges leather lappets, a habit he’d gotten into with Bayek’s cloaks and tunics, he waited a moment to get picked up before –

_Embarrassment_.

Face flaming at the automatic action he hadn’t even realized he’d developed Desmond stepped back away from Alexios, an apology and shame on his tongue. Just because _Bayek_ took care of him like that didn’t mean that every adult was going to treat him like particularly beloved luggage. Alexios was _nice_ and he _seemed_ to like them all well enough, but Kassandra and Desmond had made his choices _for_ him and –

Large hands, larger than Bayek’s were, slid under his arms to lift him like a feather pillow before he was twisted and seated on broad shoulders. His hands automatically went to Alexios head to steady himself as the man grasped his ankles firmly but gently in his hands.

“Shall we ask which of our noble steads would like to carry us?” the Greek spoke as if nothing unusual had happened, that same chipper tone in his accented voice. “Ikaros, get down here you coward!”

Stunned, Desmond couldn’t do anything but stare down at the top of that brown-haired head, instinct keeping him from pulling on his longer hair. The world was a different beast from so high up and Ikaros gave a cry that almost sounded offended before swooping passed Desmond playfully, feathers ruffling his hair.

“… Ibex?” he felt tumble from his trembling lips. “Do you think you could teach me how to tan the leather, or is that a _Baba_ question?”

“Leather I can do,” Alexios laughed, squeezing his ankles fondly and Desmond felt his face heat, staring helplessly as _another_ adult tripped into his heart. “Though ask me to craft anything pretty and that would _definitely_ be a Bayek question.”

“We could make sausages,” he mused thoughtfully, swallowing and closing his eyes, tilting his head back, letting himself trust Alexios to hold him steady. “And we still have the herbs from _Baba’s_ last market trip and the dried noodles.”

“Hmm, perhaps we can find some lamb in the future? I have a few recipes I’ve collected over the years that even I could not forget,” the man huffed, as if remembering something offensive someone had said to him. “And you certainly have a chef’s flair, little eagle.”

“I like cooking,” he defended before the epithet registered, tilting his head to look down at his new housemate. “Eagle?”

“Mm, yes. I was called the Eagle Bearer, you know,” Alexios jumped a little and Desmond grabbed his head again, adrenaline jolting just enough to make him giddy. “And you and Ikaros about the same weight!”

“Hey!”

Laughing, the tall Greek lifted him from his shoulders to set on the fence while he went about saddling one of the horses. It looked like Fangs this time, who wouldn’t do anything without his intimidating headgear and loved to steal the neighbor’s fruit.

“Hey, Alexios?” he spoke after few minutes of watching him tighten girth straps and settling the eagle perch in place.

“Yes, Desmond?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Pausing, the man turned to him and smiled, softer than the brilliant grin he tended towards or the half-confused, pole-axed smiles he gave Bayek. There was something sad in his eyes that was warmed by the expression and Desmond smiled back slightly.

“Me too, little eagle, me too.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bayek's eyes see all.
> 
> Grammar and Typos!

If there was something that he was not, it was a fool.

Bayek knew how to use resources when they were offered to him, and he knew how to gauge a man with more than just this Eagle Vision he apparently had.

He also, however, knew when someone was attracted to him and not sure what to do with it without getting smashed through another wall. To be honest, he got more entertainment out of issuing orders to watch the tall, well-built Grecian man fumble his words and fall all over himself to please him, than he did when felling a nasty foe. It was cute to see a man who was physically stronger than him wither under a stern eye like he might explode from embarrassment.

This wasn’t to say that he was stringing the man along in any way. Bayek had made no notion that he was interested in turn – and as of yet, he wasn’t, for him these things took time – and Alexios had made no overtures.

Desmond still thought it was _fear_ that kept Alexios in line rather than his desire to be _taken to task_ as it were. Just imagining the boy’s face should he realize just what made Alexios run into doorframes while Bayek changed clothing was enough to send the Medjay into fits of laughter. That was one thing that he was glad not to have his new son thinking about, because the boy had taken to Alexios like a particularly silly uncle.

Chenzira was still firmly Satsebau’s father, rather than an extension of the family, and it was nice to see his boy branching out.

If it took sparring with Alexios once in a while when he was antsy and withstanding the debates of spice ratios in their food preparations, Bayek could do that. If nothing else, he could consider the Greek man out of time his friend, someone he could trust to take care of Desmond while he was gone performing his duties. Egypt did not stop simply because he had a family to take care of, no matter how convenient that would be.

Hmm.

Best not to mention that to Desmond; gold hazed miracles tended to happen from his subconscious desires.

As it was, Bayek tended to heal faster now than he once had, it took longer for him to tire and his reflexes had improved _quite_ a bit.

Men yanked from different times – why was time-travel his son’s first choice? – to help protect their little family, should perhaps be prevented in the future.

Hazel eyes, so different than most of Egypt, had some of that same fragile hope in them that Desmond had come to him with. It was worn and faded, but this was a man who had wanted family once, and perhaps that was why he had answered Desmond’s call. Not just the threat of a sister who freely used a God Orb and was very willing to toss him through an arcane doorway for his own good.

He had asked him, in those first days, if he wished to return to his time. If he had been forced to do something he hadn’t wanted to. Had told Alexios that if he wished to go back to his time, to _that_ Greece, then Bayek would find him a way to do so.

That he was, however, welcome to stay if he wished it.

Really, it was more the way that the man had looked at him in bewildered happiness that had cemented the fact that the mercenary felt for him. That it was more than want in the face of a powerful adversary or a pretty face that many a Greek had disgustingly referred to as _exotic._

He’d shown more than one the _exotic_ end of his blade.

“I would like to stay,” he had said quietly, in his aged Greek, eyes sliding from Bayek and to Desmond who was out in the yard playing with Senu. “If you will have me.”

If it had been just a desire for Bayek that had called to him to stay, Bayek would never have offered.

There was something in both boy and man that needed each other, and he would never deny those the help that they needed when he could provide it. It just meant that he had to protect them both now, if in different ways, and they would help each other in turn.

“Of course. Welcome to Siwa, Alexios.”

~*~

Sound shattered through the night, causing Bayek to roll out of bed and into a ready position. He could see through the gold haze of his eyes that Alexios had done the same from his pallet, putting both of them between the door, stairs and Desmond.

“ _Baba_?” already sliding towards his bow, his son sounded like the young man he once was. “What is it?”

Senu’s eyes saw far, and on her wing was Ikaros, who in this time of need had gotten over his fear of Bayek’s fierce partner so that they might cover more ground between the two of them. As it was, she only huffed at him occasionally when the larger eagle wasn’t in hiding, but he could tell that she was getting exasperated by the avoidance.

Soon that would turn to irritation, and then Ikaros would _never_ be allowed to hide from her again.

“Raiders,” he said, gesturing Alexios up with him. “Chenzira’s family will come here soon, keep everyone on the second floor and look out for stragglers who get passed us.”

“Okay, _Baba_ ,” Bayek pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead as those young eyes shimmered golden. “I’ll watch over them.”

“It shouldn’t take too long,” the mercenary said jovially, his armor clipped in place and heavy spear in hand. “There’s only, what, forty of them?”

Huffing amusedly, he pulled his hood over his head that made others assume his vision was obscured, settling his scarf in place to hide his youthful features. Always best to be underestimated, and people asked enough questions of the strange things that Desmond did.

If they learned of his ability to restore youth, there would be nowhere in Egypt for them to hide.

“Yes, a force that small is nothing,” he agreed, enjoying Desmond’s sudden exasperation with them, replacing the seriousness of before. “Won’t even be worth looting!”

“Hah! Too right!”

When they stepped out of the house they saluted one another with their weapons before taking off for the forces in opposite directions. They had at least been smart enough to try the divide and conquer method of attack, but they were still under the impression that Bayek was the only truly skilled fighter in Siwa. A few old soldiers had retired to Siwa with their families, and now that Alexios was there, he needn’t worry about having to rush through anything.

It was a nice safety net for potential enemies with more training that was usual. Fewer lives would be lost this way, and that was always a comfort to him.

In Senu’s vision, their home was a beacon of gold, and Alexios was a smaller but no less bright golden blur moving towards his quarry. Bayek did not relish in the taking of life, though there was some satisfaction in completing an objective or defeating a difficult foe.

There was, however, was a little cold curl of approval with every raider that was slain by his blades and arrows, who fell to the improved blade upon his wrist. They attacked his home, endangered his friends, his people and his family.

That was not to be tolerated.

Desmond had designed one for him that was unlikely to take anymore of his fingers, and he had been amused at the boy’s insistence that he use the new ones. Yes, two of them, one for each arm. It had taken a few days to get used to them, and a few missions to become comfortable with them, but they were comfortable enough.

Strange, to think the weapon with which he’d sought his revenge was used until the potential end of time, but also… freeing.

It didn’t take long to clean up the rabble that had decide that Siwa would be a nice target, and once he’d helped organize the bodies he returned back to that favored beacon. It was heartening to see that there were no bodies outside their home, that Bayek and Alexios had managed to contain both sides of the incursion.

Absently enjoying the strangled noise that Alexios made at seeing Bayek with blood dripping from his blades, he pulled off his bloodied hood and scarf to smile down at Desmond. The boy had his bow still held in hand but set it aside quickly to run towards his _Baba_ and jump into his arms, uncaring of the blood it would get on his clothes and skin.

“How do you think we did, little blade?” he asked in amusement, setting the boy on his hip with ease. “Were we quick enough for you?”

“Eh,” his boy ducked his head with a grin. “You did alright, I guess. Even if we _definitely_ need to wash everything.”

Dark eyes looked over at their Greek man, who was enduring rapid-fire Egyptian from Satsebau and her insatiable need to _know._ Her thick, curly hair was pulled back into a black puffball on the back of her head, held there by metal combs and leather string, her Nubian gapped teeth flashed with every sparkling smile.

Senu and Ikaros were winging in circles overhead, distant cries of all-clear that only the haze touched could understand.

The taller man looked over at Bayek and Desmond who were both wholly amused, and he rolled his eyes before running a blood encrusted hand over his face. Smeared with blood, stubble near long enough to be called a beard, the planes of Alexios face were put into relief, and Bayek hummed as he studied them.

“Yes, a bath would do us good,” he decided, taking note of the red flush under smeared blood even as he stepped towards the house. “We could stand to do some laundry as well.”

Whatever else it would be, it would be amusing to watch Alexios flail about.

~*~

When he’d first taken Desmond down to the water to bath, he’d learned that the boy _loved_ to swim, enjoyed exploring beneath the water.

It was one of the first time he saw his new son completely unburdened, throwing himself into the water and searching for little things to collect together. The number of stones, old arrow heads, bones and sky glass that Desmond had found and then thought he needed to leave behind was ridiculously charming. So was the way that his eyes had lit up at the sight of his spoils stacked neatly in their home when Bayek brought it home for him.

Funnily enough, it was unsurprising to find that their Greek _also_ loved the water.

He was tossing Desmond about in the water, wet hair sticking to his face and scarred musculature bared for all to see. While it did not move him, Bayek studied to the way that shadows played over paler skin, how water droplets caught in the man’s chest hair.

Alexios was well formed, his body honed for the violence he’d once used to feed himself and those under his care.

Despite having lived longer than Bayek had, there was something young in the man that the Medjay did not have in himself. A sort of innocence or perhaps belief that had never existed in Bayek, something that had been smothered by grief and duty.

It was… refreshing.

Also, when that brightness, that fervor for life shone in one of them, Desmond or Alexios, it was reflected back between them brighter. It was… lovely, in a way, and brought each breath to Bayek’s chest that much easier to know that there was more than _Bayek_ to keep Desmond happy.

There was nothing that he would not do for family, for those who needed him, but he also knew that a person could not grow well if they relied solely on a single person. It wasn’t healthy.

Just like the loneliness that Desmond had lived first, the resignation, such things stunted a person in the long run.

So Bayek enjoyed the way that the laughing, delighted Desmond popped out of the water to climb their Greek once more. Enjoyed the honest, brilliant grin on his friend’s features as he used his considerable strength to toss the child out into the water once more.

Laughter like that, he would likely enjoy the Leap of Faith, wouldn’t he?

Sighing, the Medjay stood from where he’d been relaxing in the sand, shaking it from his body and stepping into the water as well.

While their things dried, why not join the games as well?

If his heart felt fuller each time his son called for him to help in his game to topple Greece, and something startled to coil in his chest at every dazed look Alexios gave him, well.

Bayek had been content for several years, but he could recognize this feeling.

Happiness was always welcome when family was around.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter! Enjoy Alexios and his continued struggle against the feels.
> 
> Grammar and Typos, please!

Living in the household of the last Medjay of Egypt was… beautiful in ways that Alexios had forgotten life could be.

The closest thing to a home that he’d had in a long time was his ship, and even then, he’d had to commission new ones. Life at sea and constantly struggling against pirates and other combatants made the lifespan of a vessel significantly shorter. There was no _settling_ on a ship, not during his time.

While he’d loved visiting Kassandra at her estate, it had never been _his_ home.

This, though? This little house in the desert, made of clay and straw and wood, covered in tapestries from all over Egypt and some from Alexandria? Where he had an armor rack next to Bayek’s so that he might shed that weight when it wasn’t needed? Where Desmond would climb him like a mountain and cook with him with sweet smiles and hesitant hugs?

Truly, this was what a home should feel like.

There was safety and solidity in Siwa the way that there never had been in Sparta or Athens. No one knew him here, though he had quickly been attached to Bayek’s legend amongst his people.

It had been centuries, even Kassandra would be long gone, but she had found her place and shoved him into his own. The years might have fallen from his features, but Alexios remembered the loneliness that had plagued him.

Part of him ached, but mostly he delighted in what she had given him in her usual abruptly decisive way.

Alexios might never meet her child, but he didn’t need to have because he knew his sister had done her absolutely terrifying best by them. That child had grown up with the most terrifying mothers to walk this world and had probably been just as sharp as their mother.

It had been a bruise easily forgotten, a balm soothed by every time Desmond would initiate a game or Bayek would smile at him.

And then he met Aya.

~*~

A shiver had crawled up his spine as he’d been walking back towards the front of the house, Desmond tossed over one shoulder. The boy had paused where he was plucking at the seams of Alexios’ tunic, attention obviously caught.

“What’s wrong?”

“I do not know,” shifting his grip, the Greek pulled the boy down to his waist so it would be simpler to drop him if necessary. “But there is something…”

When she stepped out of the house, that old woman with his sister’s chin and a similar slant to her eyes he had immediately known they were related. Oh, how she shone yellow gold in his sight, the bow and sword on her back similar to Bayek’s, letting him know that they were of a similar trade. Considering that either meant she was a Medjay – supremely unlikely – she was likely a Hidden One.

One of the first, if she was close to Bayek’s true age.

“So, you are the Grecian,” the woman stated, stepping forward, a ragged scar running across one cheek as she examined him. “Hmm, I suppose you are at least pretty to look at.”

She dismissed him quickly and turned her gaze towards Desmond, who looked just as confused as Alexios was. The judgement slipped off her features for a warm smile, a kind of sad echo to the grief that still shaded their Medjay’s face.

Oh.

He knew who she was.

Bayek’s wife.

Stomach curling with a cold ball that was ridiculous because the man and he weren’t even in an arrangement. There was no cause for jealousy or hurt because there was nothing there to _be_ hurt or jealous about. As it was, he knew that the two hadn’t been in contact in some time, only exchanging letters for the last few years as age made travel difficult.

It was stupid, Alexios was being stupid.

Part of him hurt for Bayek, though, for the chance to grow old and die with this woman had been taken from him by innocent hands.

Desmond slid down his side to step towards her as Bayek stepped out of the house and leaned against the doorframe. The boy looked curious and reassured by the reappearance of his _Baba_ , before stepping forward to where the woman had knelt down to greet him. Her hair was mostly grey with hints of brown to it, tied in complicated Grecian braids that probably didn’t mean what they used to mean.

“Hello, Desmond,” she held out a hand to him and he took it curiously, smiling back slightly with confusion. “I am Aya, once of Siwa. I have known Bayek for a very, very long time.”

“Hello, Aya,” Desmond peered at her curiously with eyes hazed by golden sight before looking curiously at Bayek, who shook his head almost regretfully. “It’s nice to meet you.”

That aching grief, that Alexios was sure his own didn’t even compare to, of losing a child was a glimmer in her eye, but she was very gentle. There was kindness in her just like there was in Bayek, but she seemed more driven, perhaps. Whereas the Medjay had settled down, Aya had a traveler’s spirit, had a drive and a cause for which she fought.

They had spoken of Khemu a few times, deep in the night with Desmond asleep downstairs. Always with alcohol involved and that bittersweet ache of loss that came with a child passed forward into the beyond too soon. Alexios in turn had told him haltingly about Phoebe and how while she hadn’t been his, she had still been family.

He wanted to bring up Brasidas, the plans that they’d once carefully not made but alluded to, but that was… that was a different thing. That was too close to how he felt about Bayek, how he wanted to live a life with him even if it wasn’t a romantic one. Alexios didn’t want to make things awkward between them, didn’t want to lose the easy acceptance he had found here. With this dangerous man whose smile was more cutting than any blade, and open heart a most fatal blow. With Desmond, who was a bewildering joy to have around and loved to learn knew things, always surprised by praise.

Sometimes when the nights ran late and Desmond fell asleep in one of their laps, head over heartbeat because it soothed, they would speak of other things. The impossible creatures they had fought, the sights they had seen and the Gods they had defied in the course of their lives.

If he was lucky, sometimes Bayek would lean back to back with Alexios, humming with Desmond in his lap and the Greek could imagine that they were a family.

If he was _really_ lucky, then the boy would fall asleep in _his_ arms for a nap after noon-meal and Alexios would follow after. When he woke, it would be to the sight and the press of warmth along his side because Bayek had returned and chosen to lay down beside them. He would get to listen to the man breath and watch his lashes flutter in sleep, kohl smudged from his rest and days’ work.

“Aya is a master marksman, Desmond,” Bayek told his son, a melancholic twist to it. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind a lesson from her today?”

Hand still in the woman’s, the boy studied her for a moment before nodding, a small shy smile twisting his lips.

“Okay.”

~*~

Later that night, as Bayek was speaking of the constellations and family stories with Desmond on the roof, Alexios was sat by the fire.

Often when there was little else to do, he would do maintenance on his and Bayek’s weaponry and armor, doing mindless mending. Sometimes Desmond would sit with him to help, to learn to spot weakness in the metal with the eyes they shared.

Aya was sitting close to the fire as well, rubbing her stiff hands with a look of tired contentment as she sipped on some beer.

“You remind me of a story,” she spoke suddenly, her voice raspy and low with age, eyes not pulling away from the fire. “Passed down through my family for the last generations.”

Alexios paused and looked up at her, considering.

“You are a descendant of Kassandra, yes?”

Her eyes met his for a long moment before she smiled.

“I am. The sister of the Eagle Bearer and Champion of Grecian arts. She sponsored Sappho, a most educated woman who is famous in today’s Greece.”

“I knew the moment I saw you,” he told her, quirking a wry smile. “You have a similar bearing to her, though I don’t quite fear for my life as much as I did with my sister.”

The woman laughed, a hearty, warm sound that must had drawn quite the eye when she was younger, and he can see why Bayek fell in love with her. His heart panged a little, but he smoothed it away, well aware that sometimes things just weren’t reflected in the way you wanted. Sometimes other love was just as good as what you desired, and Alexios firmly believed that this was the case with Bayek.

Friendship, family, he honestly believed that those things could be just as fulfilling with this man and this child at his side.

“The stories said you were a kind fool,” she smiled, amused. “But perhaps that was the bias of a sister who could not be reprimanded.”

“As if she would have changed her tune even if I had been there to say anything against her,” he said wryly, sighing and shaking is head in fond exasperation. “Yes, that sounds like her.”

“I’m glad you are here,” she said after a few moments of quiet. “I’m glad that Bayek is not alone in this. Desmond is a good boy, but he cannot support Bayek in the way that he needs,” a flush pulled to his cheeks and she held up a hand to stall his objections. “That man takes on burdens too easily, helps anyone who asks for little in return. Having someone who thinks of his wellbeing as well at his side is best.”

Unable to think of any words, he simply looked down at the blade in his hands once again, too cowardly to speak against her assumptions.

No, Kassandra was right.

He was a fool.

~*~

He smiled while watching Desmond press the bread flat for cooking, the best to wrap around their roasted vegetables and meat.

Their new cellar kept jams and the like rather well, and Desmond liked to try his hand at deserts. Trying his creations was always a treat – in all senses – and often to the boy’s embarrassed pleasure Bayek would fight him for them.

The meal was simple fair, but warm and filling, with enough to go back for seconds if they were wanted. Alexios and Bayek sipped on beers while Desmond drank water that he’d flavored with chunks of fruit left over from desert.

“We should get goats,” he was telling Bayek _again_. The first time, Alexios was sure he’d been distracted by other things, heading out to deal with a group of bandits. “We could have cheese and milk.”

“I don’t know much of animal husbandry,” the Medjay sounded unsure. “Could we keep them penned with the horses, or would we need another enclosure?”

“Milk?” the boy interrupted freely, no longer worried for retribution. “I could make a lot of stuff with free access to milk. And we could make a smoke house for the cheese, it’s really good smoked.”

The men considered one another before nodding. For the sake of their sense of taste it was best to get their boy these goats.

Alexios also just missed the meat.

Poultry and ibex were fine, but his blood called for more traditional foods, even the fish being so very different from what he was used to. Desmond’s ability to cook to his tastes was fantastic and he wished he had olive oil and grapes for other dishes. What they had was rather good, though, and they were expanding their palate quite nicely.

“I don’t think I’ve had smoked goat cheese,” the boy continued muttering, eating the pieces of fruit left in his cup. “Could try with adding in some cow’s milk for consistency…”

As he continued to mutter to himself, little brows furrowed thoughtfully, the adults shared a fond, amused look.

Alexios was aware that Desmond himself was from far, far in the future. That his gold lined hand was a result of great sacrifice, and their youth from his desire to know a family for as long as possible. He _also_ knew that Desmond enjoyed cooking and learning, that he took pleasure in making things for his _Baba_ and Alexios to enjoy.

He’d taken up learning bits and pieces of things from the weaver as well, to help make them little things for around the house.

Reaching out, Bayek patted the boy on his ankle as he laid back in front of the fire, confident that one of them would move him if he fell asleep.

“You spoil us,” the Medjay said, clearly enjoying the flushed little scowl he received, just as much as the Greek did when he was on the end of it after he laughed. “Continue to make your plans, little blade. Alexios and I will take drink upstairs.”

“We will?” a smack to his shoulder. “I mean, right, of course.”

Desmond giggled and rolled over towards the fire so that he could pretend to hide his eye roll from them.

They made their way up to the veranda on the second level and seated themselves on cushions. Bayek lit the little oil lamp on the table while Alexios poured them both a drink from the cask of beer they kept up top after the setting of the sun. Another of the tasks that the Grecian man had taken upon himself, though the Medjay had never asked him to.

The only thing that Bayek had ever instructed him to do was to fix the wall he’d thrown him through, and to protect Desmond.

Both were simple things, but one was a supremely more important and implied more trust than Alexios had thought he’d garnered in so short of a timeframe.

Protecting Desmond was something that he would have done without instruction, of course, but the directive gave a sense of weight to the task. Considering the amount of strange things that boy did, magic hand _not_ included, it was best to keep strange eyes from gaining too much interest. The fact that Alexios was younger was fine, he was an unknown, but Bayek?

He had to constantly keep himself covered to hide that he had lost nearly forty years in a single day. The people that he was once friendly with he’d needed to distance himself from, all except for one family he trusted implicitly.

“When I met Aya,” Bayek started out of nowhere, causing Alexios to jerk in place a little. “I did not immediately desire her. It took time, and one day I woke up and looked at my best friend and realized that there was more there than I had seen before. As if a veil had lifted from my eyes to show me things that I had been blind to before.”

Sitting there with his jaw hanging slightly open, the Greek snapped his mouth shut, feeling foolish sitting like so.

“Today, I turned towards you and I saw you,” setting his cup aside, Bayek switched to a kneeling position from his easy cross legged one. The hand missing a finger lifted to cup Alexios’ scruffy jaw and he felt his heart pump harshly in his chest. “I know that you have desired me,” a flicker of fear under the Greek’s shock. “And I have tried not to push you one way or another, as my heart decided for me what I would see when I looked at you.”

Swallowing harshly, shaking hands lifted to rest on Bayek’s hips hesitantly, waiting to be told no, he could not touch. Waiting to be thrown from this roof for stepping past bounds he had tried to respect as best he could.

“What… what do you see?”

He had been worth loving once, was he still? Had the years worn away all the good things that Brasidas had seen in Alexios?

“I see my friend,” Bayek’s other hand lifted to cradle the other side of his jaw and he inched a little closer to Alexios. “I see someone compassionate and humorous. Someone who care more for others than for themselves. A man who has known love and loss and still been strong enough to continue on,” Alexios felt his breath stutter in his chest. “I see the breadth of your shoulders that hold my son so securely. The gentleness of your hands when you handle any living thing that deserves such kindness.”

Dazed, he stared up into kohl lined eyes and licked his lips, grip tightening as the Medjay shifted first one leg and then the other to straddle his lap. Bayek leaned down, amber eyes bright next to smudged black, corners of his lips curling up as they shared breath.

“I see your eyes, which watch me but try not to, and take pleasure from your admiring gaze. I see your hands, which hesitate but hold steady, and want them to touch me. I see your back, so scarred and so strong, and I want to press my teeth into it,” was he breathing? Alexios couldn’t tell anymore. “I see your lips, which smile at me and laugh so prettily, and I want to kiss you.”

He stopped saying those lovely words and simply looked down at the stunned, delighted Greek who couldn’t believe his ears. His voice, when he continued, hummed pleasantly against Alexios’ skin.

“May I kiss you?”

As if there were any other answer than –

“Yes, Gods, please _yes.”_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHA it's been a minute. But. Well. Life is a thing and I have work and am perpetually sad/tired unable to function. So. Sorry about the delay but this is what I've got. Any not English words are the work of google, forgive me if I bastardize anyone's language. I am just a poor overworked people.
> 
> Grammar and Typos!
> 
> Warning: Mentions of Bill and him being an ass. This uses some crude language.

Desmond was happier than he’d thought that he could ever be.

He was better protected than he’d ever been at the Farm, better _loved_ than he’d been at any point in his life; he was just _better_.

Adventures with Satse were fun, chaperoned by Ikaros overhead who Desmond was sometimes able to connect with. The eagle was capable of alerting Alexios should anything go wrong while he was running errands or doing housework. Desmond could fight if push came to shove, had a knife and his bow and arrows, the combined genetic memory of numerous Master Assassins.

He didn’t have to, though.

Not anymore.

Living in Siwa was more dangerous and wilder than his own time had been, a fun chaotic life that could also be considered training. Parkour wasn’t a concept yet, and France didn’t even exist, but both Alexios and Bayek were skilled at traversing difficult terrain. The Egyptian more agile than the Greek, but neither were incapable.

Bayek had climbed the _pyramids_ and Desmond was never gonna get over that.

It wasn’t like training during his first childhood though. He wasn’t being forced into ten-hour long practices, he hadn’t broken anything, and no one was upset with him if he didn’t want to do drills.

He didn’t want to do target practice that day? Alright, want to learn how to dye cloth?

Didn’t want to stalk an ibex? Alright, how about we work out that recipe?

It was just… there were choices. Freedom. Never disappointment or punishment for a perceived failure that Desmond hadn’t known he was being tested on.

There were no tests here. No grades. Just… living.

They trusted him to know his own mind, to know that somedays were bow and knife days, some days were weaving and cooking days. _Baba_ and Alexios weren’t always on the go, either. As time passed Bayek went out on fewer missions for the Hidden Ones, Aya slowly petering off those that had been sent his way. Because the Medjay had asked her to; he wanted to spend more time with his family.

The change in dynamic between the two main adults in his life had been subtle over the months that Alexios had joined their household, but noticeable. What Desmond had initially taken for fear and awe was perhaps less fear and more infatuation on the Greek’s part. Actually kind of obvious now that he was thinking about it, his eyes opened to the possibility.

So sue him, Desmond hadn’t had an actual relationship with emotions involved in the entirety of his too short life.

Bayek had been sizing Alexios up for near the entirety of his time there, and Desmond didn’t notice that anything had changed until he’d noticed the golden cord between them. Just like the one that was twined between him and his _Baba_ , only the feeling was different in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend. Intellectually he knew that it was because they were romantically involved and because Bayek felt for him parentally, but it was still a little strange.

They loved each other. And they loved Desmond.

This new life was _crazy_.

“Desmond!” Bayek called to him from where he crouched comfortably on the wall around the house. “Shall we practice by the lake today?”

Brightening at the suggestion, he automatically looked up at Alexios, who he’d been helping tie herb bunches with.

“Go on, little eagle,” the tall man grinned down at him. “I will expect your help with dinner, however! Take some fruit and jerky with you.”

“Yes, Alexios,” fell naturally from his lips as he waved at his _Baba_ to stay where he was. “I’d like to learn how to wrap the grape leaves.”

“You will, you will. Now go on!”

The only thing that they really required that he practice, was keeping a handle on his weird Apple Arm so that they didn’t have another Alexios popping up. Not that Alexios wasn’t awesome and the best house-spouse around, but he was also unplanned and short notice.

And he’d been kicked through a wall, so… A lot of people weren’t that sturdy.

Best not to risk it.

Even if the idea of Bayek yeeting, like, _Connor_ , through a wall was actually kind of hilarious. Extremely funny in his head, but probably catastrophic in practice.

So he went down to the lake, hand in hand with Bayek, practicing Arabic idly while they walked, because for the structural integrity of their house, he needed control. Or at least, the ability to guide whatever Isu bullshit decided to smack into him at full force, so that he knew what the _fuck_ was going on.

When Bayek settled down in an easy cross-legged position Desmond plopped down into his lap with a still much valued ease. There was no fear here. There was no expectation or ridicule in his need for comfort and his desire for closeness.

Bayek had never called him weak or a pussy for wanting to be held, and this was no different.

Desmond didn’t think that he ever would change, and that was the most beloved thing about his new life.

The man chuckled warmly, the sound shaking through his chest as Desmond flopped back against it, heart beating steadily behind his head. Without prompting, the Medjay wrapped his arms partially around his son and the boy pressed his smaller hands into large, rough palms.

Best dad ever.

“Hmm, Desmond,” he was chided with amusement, and the young Assassin sighed. “You have forgotten something.”

“Ugh, al _right_.”

Pulling his hand out of the glove and bracer so that his skin could touch to Bayek’s Desmond shivered uncomfortably. The gold shimmered faintly in the light but was brighter where his _Baba’s_ hand was touching it, reacting to his Isu heritage.

Desmond was the product of thousands and thousands of years of selective breeding to allow him to use the Eye. He had the highest percentage of Isu blood in him and the cumulative instinctive understanding of it that he’d inherited from his ancestors. Still, Bayek nearly matched him, simply from being born so close to the very source of the Isu abilities that they bore.

Alexios had more, but he was less practiced in the abilities this gave him than Bayek was. At least outside of combat, he didn’t use it for other things in the way that the Medjay had been taught to since he was a boy.

It was strange, but also a little reassuring, not to be the strongest person in the room when it came to weird genetic bullshit. Sure, Alexios had admitted that he’d initially refused the summons that had given Desmond Bayek, but he didn’t think that he was hurt by it.

Getting used to Bayek had been problem enough, believing that he was wanted and loved and cared for by just _one_ person. Two people would probably not have worked out so well. If Bayek would have been called at all, actually, and Desmond couldn’t imagine living his life without his _Baba_ in it now. He didn’t think that Alexios could, either.

Pressing more firmly back against his father’s warmly muscled chest and the rough spin of his tunic, he sighed as Bayek’s fingers curled over his own.

These exercises were to teach Desmond how to do what Bayek did, and also helped them learn more about the abilities of the Eye that had become a part of him. About his stupid magic limb that could _at the very least_ reach through time to grab people when he let his mind drift upon his wants.

Stupid subconscious desires and his inability to make rational decisions. Repression had worked so well for him in the past but now it really wasn’t up to par when he had a too advanced limb replacement attached to him.

“Now,” Senu cried out overhead, loud and clear. “Let us breath together, my son.”

They breathed and the world blurred gold.

~*~

Playing with Satse was a fun thing, but it was especially fun when he got to teach her little things that weren’t common in this time period.

Knowing basic first aid from thousands of years in the future could only help her out, really. And if he had more than typical knowledge at times thanks to his stupid Midas arm then that was just something he’d need to talk to Bayek about. Because if they could help the world advance a _little_ bit more, or at least just Siwa, then Desmond thinks that he could be content with that.

He hadn’t come to the past to save the future. He hadn’t been thinking about what could be done to prevent all that tragedy, he hadn’t really been thinking much at all.

He’d simply wanted _to not be in pain anymore_.

To not be alone.

This, what he had now, he would never give up.

“Dezzah,” she was hanging from her knees off of a drying rack. “I’m gonna be a sister.”

Blinking in shock from where he was making some quick burn cream for Alexios – he burned, his olive skin not darkening quickly like the rest of them – he turned to stare at her. Okay, so, he knew that she had perfectly functional parents, a full set of them plus one extra because that was okay here. It was just…

The idea of Chenzira having sex was a little nauseating. It was like an uncle was doing something that he couldn’t quite fathom as an adult with adult desires.

Ugh.

“What? H – I mean, how far along is your mother?”

“Mm, I dunno. She said it was safe to say something now, but she also doesn’t look pregnant?” the girl shrugged, an odd look for someone upside down. “I don’t really get it, but my _Papo_ are happy about it.”

“Huh.”

To be honest, as an only child to pretty shitty parents Desmond had never really thought about what it would be like to have siblings. Really, he was kind of glad that he _hadn’t_ had any, simply because he wouldn’t wish what had happened to him on anyone else. Anyone who’d shared his blood would have been hunted down like a dog and bled dry of sanity and anything else of value.

Now though, he suspected that having a best friend like Satse was a little like having a younger sister, even if it probably wasn’t quite the same.

Also, he wasn’t sure that he’d _want_ a younger sibling, not if they were as rambunctious as she was, and as prone to finding trouble.

“Do you want a brother or a sister?”

“Hmm,” she put a hand to her chin, the other cradling her elbow, still upside down, puffy pom pom hair unmoving. “I think a brother. Like Dezzah!”

Flushing and making a face at her as she gave him a gap-toothed grin, he turned back towards the paste on the rock. Grinding the herbs again and adding a bit more water, he considered her words before deciding that he wouldn’t _really_ mind if Satse thought of him like a brother.

She was the closest he’d ever get to a sibling anyway. Why not take advantage?

“Well, I don’t want a sibling like you,” he announced instead of saying his thoughts on this, enjoying her offended noise of protest. “It’s too much trouble already, with _just_ you.”

“Hey!” twisting she fell from the tree. “You take that back!”

She’d landed on her feet because she’d at least learned how not to _maim herself_ from playing with Desmond, but she also looked ready to pounce.

“Wait, Satse, the paste-!”

“This is war!”

“Aaaaaah!”

~*~

That night, as he lay down at his father’s side, Alexios putting more wood on the fire and pulling drapes and doors closed, he considered.

“So.”

He stopped, unsure of how to proceed. Not uncertain as to the reception, not wary, so much as not being able to express the words he was looking for.

“So?” Bayek prompted, eyes closed, one arm behind his head.

“Um… Satse said she’s gonna be a sister?”

Stupid. Why was that a question?

Across the room, Alexios slipped and swore before he caught himself, turning to meet Desmond’s embarrassed gaze with wide eyes of his own.

“There’s going to be _more_ of her?!” the Greek sounded incredulous and despairing, but the boy knew that he had a soft spot for Satse. “One is enough!”

Bayek sighed explosively, opening his eyes solely to roll them at his… lover? Partner? Whatever people in this time called their significant others of the same gender before homophobia really became a thing. Well, in Egypt anyway. The rules of ancient Sparta were kinda fucked up in the fact that fucking kids was okay – disgusting – but fully grown adults weren’t really acceptable.

Luckily, Alexios had agreed. He wasn’t raised in Sparta and also he’d never been a fucking pedophile and was only attracted to adults. Desmond was pretty sure that his subconscious wouldn’t have called a person like that into the future to be his co-parent with Bayek. Also, that Bayek would have fucking murdered him by now if he had any inkling of something like that.

Pressing his face into Bayek’s shoulder Desmond groaned in embarrassment at this whole situation. He should have kept his mouth shut, honestly. It would have been better for everyone involved and their sleep schedule.

“Lay down, _efik-ima_ ,” the Medjay sighed with fond exasperation. “He is simply asking for a sibling.”

Choking on his air, Desmond curled up into a tighter ball of mortification and put his hands over his face and prayed for death.

“What?” the Greek sounded gob smacked as he settled himself on the boy’s other side, more confused than anything else. “You mean, from _us_? I’m pretty sure that Desmond knows –“

“No, you beloved obtuse fool,” laughing at the playful disbelief of his lover, Bayek rolled to wrap his arm around his son and rest a hand on Alexios’ shoulder. “He simply wants to know if we’d be willing to adopt another child. I’m sure that his God Orb would be more than willing to give us someone who needs us.”

“Oh, my god _Baba_ ,” Desmond bemoaned his ability for human speech. “I should never have opened my mouth.”

“I was wondering if this might come up,” the man continued, as if the boy had never spoken. “Because Khemu used to ask for a sibling when he was young, and he was jealous of his friends.”

This was the worst.

“Hmm, well,” Alexios was large and warm at his back, a bulwark of strength behind him that relaxed the tension in his muscles in spite of himself. “Pressing matters of Satse having more blood relations aside, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Yes, I don’t think I would mind either,” Bayek tilted his head just enough to press a kiss to Desmond’s hair, and he flushed as the people who were basically his parents now talked over him. “Our Desmond is a good boy, and if he wants a sibling, well, who are we to tell the God Orb he has attached to his wants and wishes no?”

“Please forget I asked.”

“Oh, never.”

“Yes, we’ll remind you of this moment for the rest of your life.”

Yeah, okay, he loved them, but they could be a bit rude at times and he was not about this whole picking on him thing.

“We’re all gonna regret this,” he mourned even as he felt his eyes drifting shut sleepily. “When my brain grabs an axe murderer or something.”

“Pfft, we can handle a murderer.”

“Axes are _easy_. Just shoot him from a vantage point!”

“Can we _not_?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! This one I mostly wrote last night and then somehow while I was editing it kinda grew another limb, so...
> 
> Grammar and typos, please let me know if you see issues!
> 
> WARNING: Al Mualim is trash. He is implied to be the worst kind of trash. I am not bashing - probably - he's canonically a self serving asshole, and I'm running this angst train.

_Malik Malik Malik it hurts please help help brother Altaïr please_

_Hurts hurts dying I’m dying oh gods I’m_

_I’m scared_

_Please, please **I don’t want to** – _

~*~

Searing light.

Taking a gasping breath, Kadar arched up in remembered anguish.

Lungs sticking and stalling dryly with sudden intense awareness where before there had been nothing, as if he’d starved of air so long he’d shriveled like a corpse. He panted, writhing in feeling he’d been deprived of and yet inundated with for time without end.

And yet.

And _yet._

His stomach wasn’t bisected. His guts weren’t spilling out onto the floor, and he knew he should be dead. Had been dead. He remembered morbidly counting the beats of his heart as they slowed to nothing, as awareness slid sideways and heat drained from him as his life did the same. He remembered Malik calling his name in despair and Altaïr leaving him to die when he’d admired him so much.

He remembered cruel words and blood pooling over his lips as he drowned in his own fluids, praying to a god that did not watch over his Brotherhood for a quick death. He hadn’t been answered.

It was a horror that choked him, trembled through his frame as he curled onto his side in disbelief.

He had died.

Kadar had died.

What… what…. Why was he…

Opening his eyes, he stared dazedly, in shock, at this pulsing white place in which he’d found himself. At the way that branching, unnatural white light like the shimmer of gold around the artifact pulsed not unlike a heartbeat.

It wasn’t his, was it? No, no, _his_ heart was beating much too fast for the light to be some obscure creation of his mind as he lay dying.

Because he was dead.

Not dy _ing_. Not ending in a viscerally unforgettable manner, cut short by violence he’d always been eager to prove himself in.

Dead.

This was no afterlife that he’d ever imagined, and Kadar didn’t know what to make of this place, of the endless world around him. Trembling hands pressed with that remembered fear to his stomach, but there was no blood, there was not gaping wound and intestines perforated by blade. It was just his robes, whole and uncut, over the muscles of his abdomen, just as untouched.

He didn’t understand.

Kadar… shouldn’t be – he just _shouldn’t be_.

Sitting up laboriously, more mentally fatigued than physically in this place, he stared around him helplessly.

_Malik, my brother. I want my brother_.

Those had been his last thoughts.

_I’m afraid, brother. Please._

At least he hadn’t said them, hadn’t betrayed his cowardice in the end. Too busy choking on his own acids and blood to be able to speak more than to cry out in pain.

Mindless pain was forgivable. Begging at deaths door, was not.

As long as he could remember, if he had been hurt, Malik had been there to sooth his wounds and tell him what he had down wrong and how not to do it again. He had taught him that mistakes were alright but the laziness or ignorance that led to them would not be tolerated. Either he learned from his missteps and put in the effort to overcome these things that had hurt him, or he would simply fail again.

His brother had been kind and steady, but he had never quite been gentle. He hadn’t been able to be, not with his own training to see to, and then later taking up his mantle. Not with having to take their father’s place amongst the Brotherhood to keep the Tenets as they were supposed to be.

Not when he had to prove himself useful so that Kadar could stay with him, rather than be sent off for someone else to raise.

Thinking of his brother had the world around him changing, this odd, perturbing white place full of questions that Kadar couldn’t even begin to put words to.

As if a tapestry weaving itself before his eyes, he saw him.

Malik.

“Brother!” he called pointlessly, for his brother was not dead, so why should he hear him? “Malik, please.”

Useless.

His brother was one of the most skilled assassin’s in the Bureau and Kadar was still a novice well past when he should have been. And he had –

As he watched, the world sped and spun, like taking a Leap of Faith too high and having the wind knocked out of you.

His life, his life, his brother’s life was –

It was… different… than he’d thought it would be.

As always, Altaïr was there.

Before they had been perhaps reluctant allies and Brothers. After Kadar’s death – which Malik blamed Altaïr for, rather than Kadar, who he should have for being _too slow oh god the pain_ – however, there was animosity. There was rage and hate and too much grief as Malik lost a brother and an _arm_ , his future in the Brotherhood stunted by his infirmity.

All of this, because Kadar had been too slow.

Should have seen it, should have _known –_

He saw the artifact – Apple, it was the Apple of Eden – and what it could do. Remembered the way that his skin had buzzed like he’d been too deep in his cups when he’d touched it so very briefly. Remembered the brief moment of cobwebs in the dark and the malicious whispers of a woman who was and yet was _not_.

It haunted him into death, and he didn’t know why it took this vision for him to remember it.

He watched as they thwarted Al Mualim and kept the Apple from falling into the hands of those who would use it to enslave. He watched as Altaïr killed and killed and killed and _killed_ until there was no one left to. He watched Malik learn to trust Altaïr, to forgive him for something that was ultimately Kadar’s fault anyway. He watched them lead the Brotherhood together and make a difference.

Kadar watched, and realized that he’d _needed to die_ for this to happen.

He’d… his death had meaning.

Hadn’t it?

It still hurt, it still made him curl over his stomach as if trying to hold himself together _, fear fear fear_ tingeing his every thought and making his skin go cold.

But he’d mattered in the end. He’d… been a catalyst for the reshaping of their history and legacy. Of the place that had born him and his brother into the world.

Malik had loved him, he’d never doubted that, not for a second; he’d never _needed_ him, either. Altaïr had always been more like what _Kadar_ should have been for his brother. Perhaps not in temperament, but in ability. An equal to stand side by side with during battle, against the world at large.

Wanting to bring honor to his brother’s name, Kadar had tried to emulate the man who was called the most skilled Assassin of their time. To work himself up to the feats that this man on par with his brother, better even, so that Malik would be _proud_ of him. Love was wonderful, it helped Kadar through the nights where his hands shook, and blisters marred his feet and fingers from climbing. When his own blood saturated his mouth more than saliva and he only tasted copper and vomit and disappointment.

But it… it felt like he was failing him.

Malik had sacrificed much in raising Kadar, in setting aside time from his own studies and training to raise a boy nearly a decade younger than him. If there hadn’t have been Kadar to fend for, he believed his brother could have been just as good as Altaïr, _better_ even.

Despite his future treachery, Al Mualim had at least been right about one thing. The… _lessons_ … he had given to him when he had been falling behind in his studies hadn’t been wrong, Kadar knew that. He had been a tool in Al Mualim’s hands and… and he had been a dull blade, whereas Malik had always been keen edged and cutting.

Kadar had held him back.

Every injury he’d received during training had distracted his brother, every beratement he’d received from the trainers was contested by his brother, every _lesson_ … well. After a while, it had been simpler to not tell Malik these things and let him do what he was meant to, to be an Assassin, rather than his brother. It was for the good of the Brotherhood, really, and Malik had advanced quickly without the distraction of protecting him.

In this, Al Mualim had been correct; once Kadar stopped complaining, once he simply accepted these facts, Malik flourished.

It didn’t mean that _he’d_ improved or stopped getting hurt, that he wasn’t still punished for failures; it simply meant that he dealt with it on his own. That he took his marks without question. As a man should.

And he _could_! Kadar was nearly two decades old; he’d been a man for years at this point he’d just been self-absorbed. Not spoiled, perhaps, but catered to.

But this.

Knowing that for once he’d been able to do something for the brother who had done _everything_ for him, who had loved him without question, even if it was just dying…

It hurt, a little, he couldn’t deny that, but he was also… relieved.

_I did this_ , he could think, looking at Malik standing at Altaïr’s shoulder, older than most Assassin’s dreamed of being. _I helped make this happen._

Pressing his hands to his stomach, he swallowed thickly.

_I mattered._

_Please. I…_

_I_ mattered.

~*~

He didn’t know how long he sat there, listless, watching the life of his brother as he aged and then was youthful again. As if this strange happening was sliding back and forth through time to connect points of consequence.

Kadar thinks he might have cried a little at some point, but it had dried readily enough.

Cheeks felt a little sticky, but who was he to care, alone here in an afterlife of barren white. There was no shame when no one could see.

His guts hurt, a phantom pain that he’d been told he’d have when his Assassin’s finger was removed, but he’d never get to experience in such a way. Rather than this horror, he thinks he’d have been relieved by the prickles and pains of a missing finger.

Malik was missing an entire arm; he shouldn’t complain, death no longer hurt him – _fear fear it hurts please brother –_ it _didn’t_. It was simply his whole mind twisting on itself with memories that shouldn’t matter anymore, not in this white place.

Family had been important to Malik. It always had been. Kadar knew this more than anyone, what his brother had been willing to sacrifice for family. Watching him with his son had been bittersweet, because he remembered those lessons, he remembered that calm, even tone and that fond look on his face. His brother had been his parent, his guide and guardian, and Kadar knew that this nephew he would never know, was in good hands indeed.

The best.

On the other hand, Altaïr as a father was someone awkward, really. He wasn’t… bad at it, not really, but he had enough problems accepting that he _had_ emotions that expressing things other than anger were difficult for him. Not exactly how one best connected with a child, but the man tried, not nearly so cutoff and arrogant as he’d been in his youth.

Things didn’t always stay good. Life was everchanging and the world wasn’t fair.

Malik died, murdered on the orders of someone who wanted what should not be possessed. Altaïr lost his wife, and things fell apart.

The Order remained, but the people he loved, the ones he’d cared about, they fell to keep it so. He watched the man he’d wanted to _be_ entomb himself and wait to die, his messages scattered, and his mind just barely wily enough to deny the Apple it’s wants.

And he wondered.

_I mattered, right? My life, my death, it had meaning?_

All things ended, he knew that, but… he’d wished peace on his brother, when he knew it was nearly impossible for an Assassin. He’d still wished it.

Malik had loved learning and teaching, he’d enjoyed being a brother and being a father, instructing the new novices when he could. More than the physical act of being an Assassin, he’d loved what it could let him do.

Altaïr had been an architect, an engineer; Kadar could see that now. Out from under Al Mualim’s shadow and strangling control, he’d learned that he liked to _build_ rather than to destroy. In his office he’d sketched out plans for buildings and armor and weapons. He’d designed aqueducts and sewers.

And because he’d feared being influenced by the Apple, he’d burned most of them, unable to trust the abilities of his own mind, free of a guiding hand. As much as he’d excelled at it, Altaïr did not like being a leader. Did not… believe in himself, not in the same way after the betrayal. The strength of his mind he found always in doubt, and with a thought of question he saw that perhaps he had not been the first to receive such private tutoring from Al Mualim.

Hand clenched into the fabric over his stomach, shaking. He did not look closer, because he feared to see what such meetings could entail, with Altaïr, who had always been so obedient.

Malik had taught Kadar to be curious, to seek answers. To know, that if there was anything that was too much for him, he could seek him out for aid, no matter what it was. Even after he had realized that doing so had kept his brother from his potential, he’d known that the option was there.

The Eagle of Masyaf… did not have this questioning in the same way. Did not have someone to help him if needed. He had no Malik to turn to if he had doubts. If he was afraid. There was no support if the situation became too dire.

Altaïr had always been alone, ever since his father had died when he was a boy… and there had only been Al Mualim.

Kadar had lines carved into his back and memories of chilling discomfort that he shied away from, but he had always had the knowledge that Malik would be there when his lessons ended. If… if Altaïr had had similar ones…

Sitting there, trembling slightly, he wondered. He doubted. He feared.

_Did I matter, really? Did my death help Malik become who he was supposed to be? Did it teach Altaïr who he shouldn’t become?_

Looking at these memories that weren’t his own, Kadar came to the exhausting conclusion that really, these things likely would have happened with or without him.

He was… pointless.

Everything was just.

_Meaningless_.

~*~

“Oh,” a young voice from behind had him spinning around with wide eyes, hands going for a blade he did not. “Oh, you’re _Kadar_!”

The boy that he faced was wearing old spun clothing in a tunic and long strapped sandals, his features oddly reminiscent of Altaïr’s if he had been a child covered in scars. He was darker, and his hair was longer, held back by a strip of cloth, but they shared enough features to be startling.

His hand was lined with gold just like the Apple. Like this white place.

Was… was his soul trapped in the Apple? Was that what this was?

“I can’t believe,” wide dark eyes stared up at him in awe and Kadar suddenly felt intensely embarrassed. Who would look upon him like this? He was a _novice_. _Nothing_. This child obviously didn’t know who he was, despite knowing his name. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.”

“See… what?” Kadar grimaced as his stomach pinched in more phantom pain. “This place? Is this death? Is this the Apple?”

The boy looked startled at the mention of the artifact before glancing down at his hand thoughtfully, holding up gold lined fingers to study them with furrowed brows.

“I… We call this the God Space,” the boy admitted. We? “My _Baba_ and I are the only ones who’ve been in here until now. Well, other than Senu, but I’m not sure she counts as separate from _Baba_.”

What?

“What?”

The boy shuffled sandaled feet, cheeks flushing slightly as he quirked an awkward smile.

“So, um. I’m Desmond,” the boy said quickly. “And I think I brought you here.”

“I… what? I thought I died?” this was very confusing, Kadar lifted a hand to rub it against his face, feeling heat come to his cheeks as he felt the tear tracks there. Disgraceful. “Your father and you come to this – this _God Space_ and I _died_ but somehow you brought me here?” he grimaced warily at the odd gold hand. “Is there some kind of artifact on your hand? I saw Altaïr do strange things with the Apple, but he never called someone from beyond the grave.”

“Okay, um. Let’s just…” the child looked rather torn about what to do before sighing and rubbing at his neck in a way he’d never seen a child do before. “Do you mind if I get my dad?”

Yes, because bringing _another_ person into this situation would certainly clear all of this up.

Curling slightly over his stomach again, Kadar resigned himself to what was to come.

“Alright. It can’t get any more confusing.”

The apologetic look he received was _not_ heartening.

~*~

Bayek of Siwa was the first Assassin. A Hidden One. The Father of the Brotherhood.

If Kadar wasn’t flabbergasted before, he certainly was _now_.

“I… what?” voice faint, the young man sat down heavily. “What?”

Traveling through time was unfathomable. Traveling thousands of years into the past impossible and yet… the evidence was before him.

Desmond had been a man who had died far, far into the future to save the world, and these Isu, The Ones Who Came Before, had gifted him a father. Or rather, the effect of the machine they’d built had allowed Desmond to find one for himself because his own had been unsatisfactory.

Bayek’s words, and the glint in his eye spoke of murder should the two of them ever chance to meet.

He thinks that Malik would have liked this man. That perhaps _certain people_ were more unsatisfactory than others and _deserved_ to meet someone like Bayek.

“I’m sorry,” Desmond blurted, a man who had the chance at a second childhood. “I didn’t mean to do this to you.”

_To_ him?

“You did not kill me,” his voice sounded befuddled to his own ears. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I…”

When the boy fell silent, the man placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and knelt in front of Kadar where he sat on the ground incredulously. The Egyptian man’s eyes were clear and calm, and his mouth relaxed and friendly, and he still seemed more dangerous than Altaïr or Malik ever had.

Not as terrifying as Al Mualim could be, but just… dangerous. Potential.

“My son was asking for a sibling,” the man smiled at him gently, as if Kadar were an animal that might spook. To be fair, he didn’t feel far off from the approximation. “And the mechanics of his abilities are still new to us. He has little knowledge of how to guide them himself, and it works on his desire for certain things. In you, he found things that he would wish for in a sibling.”

Him? This god touched boy who’d saved the world and reached through time to pluck him from death had done so because _Kadar_ would make his ideal sibling?

“You must be mistaken!” his voice shook slightly, and he swallowed, glancing away. “Malik is the good brother. I am… simply Kadar.”

_I am nothing._

“You’re like me,” Desmond blurted out, stepping forward around his father’s form, hands twisted together but features tensed with seriousness. Dark eyes earnest and so strangely familiar. “But… you were trying to live up to other people’s expectations. You failed, and you got back up, and then you kept trying. You were only trying to make Malik proud and you died to do it.”

As Desmond had done, trying to win the love of his father.

Which considering the circumstances, Kadar had the startling realization that his life had likely been more charmed than this boy before him. He’d never once doubted Malik’s love, despite his many failings, and this boy before him had never _known_ that kind of love.

Ah.

A slow, odd realization settled in his chest.

Kadar had perhaps been a failure as an Assassin, as Al Mualim had regretfully taught him, but… perhaps… perhaps he had been a good brother. He had… he had made mistakes, of course, but he’d tried to ease Malik’s burdens when he could, to help him in his endeavors. He’d made sure that he ate when he got home from a mission and would instigate games when things were too serious.

As an Assassin, Kadar had been mediocre. Easily replaced. And despite the friendship that had kindled between Malik and Altaïr in the future, they had never had the relationship that he and Kadar had shared.

_I was a good brother_ , he thought, throat thick and blinking rapidly against sudden heat. _Maybe I didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but I was a_ good _brother._

“I tried,” his voice was rough, and he glanced away, suddenly wishing that he had his hood pulled up to hide his face. “I tried to be good for him. He was… he deserved a good brother.”

“Yeah,” something untensed in Desmond’s frame at his admittance, and the boy leaned against his father. Kadar wondered what that was like. “Yeah, Malik was a good man, and a good brother, but he was…”

“He was an Assassin, more than all of those things,” Kadar agreed, smiling faintly, proudly. “He was one of the best.”

_I took that from him, with his arm._

“I… didn’t want… I mean – I…”

No, despite the inability to say the words, Kadar perfectly understood his meaning.

“You wanted a brother, not an Assassin.”

Desmond looked embarrassed, ducking his head in a nod.

“You’re an Assassin, I know that, but,” he shrugged helplessly, looking to his father, who simply smiled warmly, encouragingly. “But I’ve always thought of you as Malik’s younger brother who died too young and… I guess that stuck. Not the novice Assassin who was struck down on a mission, but Malik’s brother who died and was loved enough that he was grieved for, for the rest of his brother’s life.”

It was… a thrillingly impossible thought.

Not that Malik was more Assassin than brother in the eyes of a stranger, but that _Kadar_ could fill that gap for someone who had _seen_ who Malik was as a person.

Pausing, he looked into Bayek’s eyes, uncertain.

The man took a breath, something sad shifting over his face before it smoothed into compassion and steely warmth once again.

“If you would join us, our family would be better for it.”

Well… he’d lived the life of disappointment once and been loved without question. Perhaps he could learn what it was to have no expectations, other than to relearn that sibling kind of love with someone new. He knew he could do that at least; be a brother.

“I… I do not know if I will be what you want me to be,” Kadar spoke hesitantly, but he felt his chest ease at the dawning hope and disbelief on the boy’s face. “But I am willing to try.”

Pulling a hand away from his stomach, he reached it out towards Desmond, and when the boy took it with his golden hand, the world twitched for a moment.

Blinking, he looked at his much smaller hand. Still larger than Desmond’s but not at the size of a young man of nearly two decades, but more along the lines of a _single_ decade.

Ah.

“Oh, _shit_.”

Oddly enough, Desmond’s reaction was funnier than the situation was alarming, all things considered. He’d died and woken up in a mysterious magical room that was outside of time and had been wished for by a hero after his story had ended.

Suddenly becoming a child, at this point, was practically expected.

Really, wouldn’t it be easier to just be brother’s if they were closer in age?

“Ah,” Kadar exclaimed in sudden surprise as his shape settled into place. “My teeth are back!”

He’d thought to live with those gaps for the rest of his life!

In a manner of speaking, he had.

This was… a new life.

_I’m uncertain, brother. I’m afraid,_ he swallowed thickly before smiling brightly down at the bewildered Desmond, the expression well-worn from years of repetition. _But I will try my best, as you did, to find happiness where I can._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay new chapter, right? Anyway, a bit more of the angst train in this.
> 
> Grammar and Typos!!
> 
> WARNING: More implications of the bad things about Al Mualim from our boy Kadar.

Why was it that the world was so unkind to children?

Bayek watched his son and their new charge with sad eyes, saw Desmond hesitate to take his hand and then reach for it determinedly. Saw thin shoulders jolt before something awed twisted on scarred young features and the boy smiled shyly up at the now older of them. Despite perhaps having reservations in some respect, Kadar was just as awed by Desmond’s regard, if better at hiding it.

When they’d all woken from the God Space, Kadar had been sitting beside them with wide eyes studying Bayek and Alexios’ armor.

It was painfully tragic to realize that this boy had been a sacrifice of selfish men as well, and Bayek wished to do right by him. Kadar was different from Desmond, but very similar all the same in that he wasn’t sure what to do with _adult_ affection but knew how to respond to the other boy. This connected with the fact that he had been raised by his brother quite well, just as his wariness of Alexios and Bayek told another story.

There were so many people that deserved to die, and Bayek might have all the time in the world now but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wish to throttle them _now._

It almost felt as if he should start a list of the people who became monsters by bastardizing the Tenets that he and Aya had set.

“Hmm.”

“What?” Alexios slid up next to him, looking down at him curiously, Ibex corpse across one shoulder. “You look like you need to destress.”

Amused, Bayek glanced up to catch the wide grin on that stubbled face and rolled his eyes even as he himself smiled. Underneath the linen clothing that the Greek wore were numerous bruises that he had taken immense pleasure in putting there, and he absently pressed a hand to one, enjoying the minute shiver it caused.

Problems though there might be, people who deserved wrath and ruin, but here and now he was happy with this little family of two bruised boys and a smiling Grecian man.

“I need to go on a journey to explain the presence of Kadar amongst us,” he spoke after a moment, looking over at the boys again. Desmond was showing his new brother the garden, and Kadar was listening with interest. “When I returned home with Desmond, they assumed I found him on my travels and adopted him that way.”

“And I, as an adult, could be explained away as traveling here on my own,” Alexios responded wryly. “While Kadar is likely more capable than most fully grown men, the average citizen won’t believe as such and will be suspicious,” hazel eyes looked over Kadar once again. “You know, he looks like he could be yours by blood. Of course, Desmond does as well, but we know that he had mixed heritage and it shows.”

“I had noticed.”

Had noticed the tilt of Persia to his features, but that his cheekbones were similar to the people of Siwa, his jawline sharper but similarly curved. If he’d stood side by side with Khemu, he might have called them cousins though Kadar’s skin was a shade lighter. Going by his adult figure – or near adult, he’d appeared to be an older teenager – he would be about Bayek’s size then as well, if slimmer.

One of those cheekbones was suddenly smeared with dirt as Desmond quick as a snake slapped a hand to it at something Kadar had said. The older looking boy – who in total years, had lived less than Desmond had – seemed stunned before his eyes narrowed in challenge.

Ah, now there were children wrestling in the yard, yelling out obscenities in Arabic at each other and shoving dirt into each other’s clothing. It wasn’t the first time they had tussled playfully in the week since bringing Kadar into their family, but it was still startling each time it happened.

At least they’d rolled away from the vegetable garden and weren’t at risk of destroying it.

While entertaining, it was best _not_ to repeat the armor rack falling on them once again, but this time with destroying their produce.

“We have the deadliest children on the continent,” the Greek seemed amused as he finally walked over towards the butchering benches. “And they are currently making a mess of each other.”

This was true, considering both of them were descended of his Hidden Ones and fully trained at that and Bayek was simply glad that they weren’t trying to stab each other. They had not spoken on it yet, but the Medjay was under the impression that their new son would also want to train under them to learn their trade as well.

Desmond hadn’t quite decided what he wanted yet, but he’d shown interest in how the Hidden Ones differed from the Assassin Brotherhood he’d known through the ages.

“Hey!” he called out when he saw metal flash against the sunlight. “No maiming!”

The look that Desmond sent him was affronted and Kadar simply flipped their positions at his distraction and took the knife to toss it away. Honestly, he’d thought too soon that they weren’t trying to kill each other. He should had added a _yet_ onto that, apparently.

Khemu had never tried to stab his friends, and if anyone was going to stab anything or anyone in Desmond’s relationship with Satse it was _her_. While Bayek had never had siblings himself, he was mostly sure that it didn’t involve literal murder attempts between them.

The Pharaohs did _not_ count as a normal sibling relationship.

Desmond swore again as Kadar used his heavier body to pin him, the former Assassin only yelping when the younger went for his pressure points but not releasing his brother.

They were absolutely _filthy_ and there was half the day yet to go through.

Honestly.

One would think that having _asked_ for a sibling and agreeing to _be_ one, they wouldn’t immediately try to remedy this with killing each other.

Sighing, Bayek prayed for patience and stepped forward to pull apart the boys. If Satse had been there, there really _would_ have been attempted murder, because that girl did nothing by halves. They were lucky that no one had lost any fingers yet, considering the awed way that Kadar stared at his hand.

Lifting the two of them by the backs of their dusty clothing, he shook them, glad to be higher than the cloud that came off of them.

And that the breeze had him upwind.

“I have come to a decision,” he told them as they hung from his hold, knobby knees and flushed cheeks, scowls on their faces and delight in their eyes. At least they were having fun trying to maim each other; that’s what really mattered. “That we are _all_ going to go on a journey together and you are going to limit the number of times you attempt to kill each other.”

Honestly, these boys had only had each other for a few days, but Kadar was surprisingly good at riling up the normally placid Desmond. Perhaps it came from originally being a younger sibling and needling his older brother and it was simply remarkably effective against his first son.

“Oh no, family field trips,” Desmond looked wide eyed even as Senu cried overhead, answered by the no longer hiding Ikaros. “I didn’t think about _that_. Well, I guess on horseback is better than being stuck in a car together.”

“A what?”

Dropping the children once again, sighing as they both landed easily on their feet, Bayek couldn’t help but shake his head, expression fond. The God Touched boy went on to explain to a bewildered but interested Kadar about the strange machines of the odd future. Uninterested in learning of the mechanics of it all, he simply patted them both on the head before turning away to go speak with Alexios.

If they were going to journey out together, then they needed to plan accordingly.

And have someone take care of the goats while they were away.

~*~

The first conversation they had had with Kadar had basically been to explain their family situation to him.

While he hadn’t been disgusted like Desmond had warned someone from his time period might be, Kadar had mostly been unsettled by Bayek and Alexios’ relationship. The boy didn’t treat them any differently, and helped Alexios stumble through learning Arabic with amusement, knowing some version of Greek himself.

Alexios lamented having just finished learning Egyptian to an acceptable standard, only to have to learn _another_ language as well.

Sometimes, at night by the fire, Bayek would catch sight of Kadar’s dark eyes studying them, something weary in his gaze. It didn’t mean that he would pull away from where he leaned against his lover, however, and while he knew that Alexios had also noticed, the man said nothing.

They would wait for the boy to come forward himself, or for Desmond to stumble across the problem with that hilarious luck of his.

As it stood, they would let it be.

All things in time.

~*~

They came to heart of the matter, however, on their travels through the neighboring villages and towns.

At a docking town, the harbor half full of ships from Alexandria, Bayek was meeting with some of the younger Hidden Ones. They had a house that they used as a base there and he had messages to pass on full of information he’d gathered on their journey.

While he didn’t often take up the mantle anymore for the Hidden Ones, he was still their Origin. They listened to his words and took them to heart, let him make additions to their maps and tell them where to go in certain areas and where not to. He would watch their sparring and give them corrections or point them towards weapons better suited to them.

Some were more suited to listening to whispers than to fighting, and these, too, he taught.

Alexios was off arguing with a fellow Grecian – who was a head shorter than him – about proper shipboard maintenance, and the children were sightseeing.

Senu and Ikaros were watching over them, and neither of the adults were worried about them, lethal little things though they were. While Desmond did not particularly _like_ violence he could defend himself if need be, and now that he knew he didn’t _have_ to, they let him go about alone. On the other hand, Kadar used his skills without thought, having grown up freely able to do so, his first instinct to go for a blade.

It was an unpleasant surprise when a shiver ran down his spine before he heard Senu distantly calling for him. Leaping onto a rooftop, he joined her vision for just a moment to see the children and found the killing cold wrapping around him.

There was a man dead on the ground in front of the two of them. Kadar had Desmond behind himself, against the wall and a bloodied knife in his hand that correlated with the pool of blood under the dead man. In front of them, there were still two men and the way that his smaller boy was curled around his stomach makes him sure that they, too, needed to die.

The world seemed to blur for a moment as he put that gold gifted speed into use and then leapt down upon the fools who’d thought to harm his children. Both hidden blades slid easily through the backs of their necks and the men fell like stringless puppets as too warm corpses on the ground. Senu’s eyes at the back of his mind caught sight of more men similarly dressed headed in their direction, and Bayek’s features tightened.

“Are you injured?” he asked quickly, kneeling before his boys.

“No,” there was a bruise on Kadar’s wrist that looked like a hand, but Bayek let it slide for now. “But Desmond’s arm is trying to _explode_!”

“Ka _dar_!” the boy in question hissed tightly, sweat on his brow and curled over his _arm_ rather than an injury. “I have no idea what it would _do_ to them!”

Ah. Well. It looked like his God Arm had tried to defend him and Desmond had panicked. Considering they had tried to instill some sort of subtlety in regard to the strangeness of his arm into him, this wasn’t a _bad_ thing. While the boy himself was a bit unnerved by it still, he was also rather blasé regarding it in comparison to how others might be.

To Desmond, these things just _happened_.

Alexios said it was because he was a child of Bayek’s soul, and that he himself was the same way. He had told his lover to go jump off the cliff because it just made his heart swell with joy at just the thought of it.

“We will talk about this later,” he instructed them. “Now up, onto the rooftops.”

Casting a concerned glance at Desmond, Kadar listened by scrambling up quickly, bloody knife disappearing as he did so. Bayek lifted his other boy into his arms, and leapt up, pulling himself fully up with one arm while the other kept Desmond pressed tightly to his chest. One skinny arm was wrapped around his neck and the golden one was warmer than it should be where it was pressed between them.

Above them, Ikaros called out in forewarning, circling with Senu, and just as the men turned down the alley Alexios hit them like a battering ram. While he wasn’t wearing his full armor – that was still attached to their mounts at the Hidden Ones house – the Greek was still significantly larger and stronger than these men. More skilled after decades of his trade and consistent sparring against Bayek over the months that he had been with them.

One man’s head cracked like an egg between the wall and a large hand, and then a kick launched one back into the rest and they toppled. Alexios didn’t have his heavy spear on him, but he ducked down to grab one of the swords on the ground and gave it an absent spin.

The weight looked off to Bayek’s practiced eye as he guided Kadar with him into a nook out of direct line of sight.

It didn’t matter in any case.

After the last one was choking on his own blood, Bayek’s lover glanced up at him with gold hazed eyes before searching the pockets of the dead. Pocketing money absently, Alexios lifted up a letter with a furrowed brow before hauling himself up onto the roof as well.

“I cannot read this,” he admitted easily, wiping blood off of his hand and passing it over at the same time. “But they all look like they’ve had payment recently. Heavy purses.”

Glancing over the letter, Bayek felt his lips pinch together.

His grasp on Desmond tightened momentarily as the implications of the words in the letter became clear to him. Someone was using another of the God Artifacts and had somehow sensed Desmond in the area, assuming that he had one. Or _was_ one, which was closer to the truth these days. This person, a wealthy man, likely, had sent out mercenaries to bring him what he wanted and kill anyone who got in the way.

Looking up to meet Alexios gaze, the Medjay grimaced.

“We must go the Hidden house,” he spoke to them all, but kept his eyes on his lover. “Alexios will guard you, and I will go hunting.”

Against his chest, Desmond uncurled slightly, his arm not as warm as it was as he blinked up at him with a frown marring his features.

“Were they hired to come for us?” he looked vaguely alarmed. “Is there a _bounty_ up?”

“They were hired, yes, but not because of a bounty,” Bayek stated simply. “I will deal with this and you can spend the time I am away with my Hidden Ones.”

“Oh my god were they trying to _kidnap_ me?” Desmond looked insulted and exasperated in equal turns as he turned towards his brother. “Is there something about me that just screams kidnappable?”

“Your face screams punchable,” Kadar assured him with a sharp grin, pleased at the face Desmond made at him in response. “But no, you don’t look particularly valuable.”

No, scarred as he was, Desmond wouldn’t be worth much to slavers, thought _Kadar_ would perhaps be, with no facial scarring. As they made their way back to the house that stored their belongings and mounts, Bayek puzzled over the stiffness to their newest family member.

That would need to be discussed before he left to hunt down the fool who thought to target his family.

~*~

As the last of his armor slid into place, he turned towards Kadar.

The boy had been watching him gear up absently, Desmond off with Alexios to find ingredients for dinner. Those two planned on making food for the entire squad of Hidden Ones with whom they were staying, and no one had objected.

“Kadar.”

Voice quiet and steady, he knelt before the boy who still carried the tension in his shoulders and hints of a frown at the corners of his lips. Dark eyes focused on him and thick little brows furrowed before he looked down at his hands, at the large bruise on his forearm.

“I thought…”

When he trailed off, Bayek simply waited, ever patient.

“I thought that,” he swallowed thickly, young voice shaking slightly. “I thought that the first man was after something else,” he admitted, shoulders hunching up by his ears. “He was alone when he pulled Desmond away from the market, and…”

For a long moment, silence rang in Bayek’s ears before his heartbeat thud loudly with sudden, all-consuming rage.

“Kadar…”

“It hasn’t – _I_ haven’t,” lifting his hands, he rubbed them through his hair he looked away, unsettled and nervous. “But there was a man, in the Bureau and I know I was safe because I had _Malik,_ but I can’t stop thinking about all those _lessons_ he would give and…”

Slowly, Bayek lifted a hand, letting it hover in the air before Kadar grasped it gratefully, little hands still callused but half the size of the man’s own.

“There is a man, was or – or _will_ be, Altaïr. Desmond looks… _much_ like him. He… He did not have a Malik to watch over him and his father died when he was young. He was always Al Mualim’s favorite and I know that he received… _special treatment_ from him. I was always uncomfortable with him, there was just – just _something_ that always felt like a threat and…”

Boney knees lifted as the boy curled around the hand Bayek had given him to hold, to comfort himself. That little heart was beating like a birds against the back of his hand and his heart _ached_ with desire to reach out, but he waited.

“I don’t _know_ though,” was continued after a long moment of silence. “I thought I didn’t want to, in that God Place, when I could view the lives of those left behind and now it is…”

“You cannot let go of the thought that he could have been hurt in this way, your friend,” Bayek the father spoke, even as the Medjay made note to _remember_ Al Mualim. “That you did not know and that there was no one there to help him.”

“It seems silly, I _know_ there is nothing I can do, nothing I could have done. The thought of it though, when Altaïr was so strong, was the pinnacle of everything I wanted to be…” dark eyes looked into Bayek’s kohl lined ones. “I may have the skills I died with, matching how talented Altaïr was as a child, but against adults trained in the same way… I would have failed.”

Against another Assassin. Their teacher.

A man in power over them who could get away with such perversions under the guise of punishment or perhaps ‘lessons’ as Kadar had implied. Even if the man had never touched his son in this way, the fact that the boy felt that he _might_ have, that he had felt threatened with it…

Bayek was a patient man, and a thorough killer.

“There is nothing I can tell you that will make your mind settle in this worry for your friend,” Bayek told him plainly, gently, squeezing his hand in comfort. “But know, that if ever someone even _implies_ that they would lay a hand on my children in such a way I will kill them very slowly,” tone still gentle and calm, the man promised. “I have fought Gods and monsters, Kadar, and human monsters are the most prevalent in this world, most in need of culling. If you wish it, I will find a way to walk through the doors of time and bring this man to the judgment he deserves before the Lord of the Duat. His soul will be in everlasting torment for his sins once _I_ am done with the flesh.”

Wide eyes stared at him before the boy blinked rapidly, wetness gathering as he ducked his head and sniffled slightly.

Uncurling enough on the crate on which he was seated to lean forward, Kadar rested his forehead against the man’s shoulder. Slowly, Bayek lifted his free hand to wrap his arm around the small body of his newest child and then closed his eyes on a careful breath.

“Know this, Kadar. I will do _anything_ to protect my family.”

The boy sniffled again, shuddering and then melting forward against him, slight weight easy to hold.

“I understand… _Baba._ ”

_Ah,_ closing his eyes, Bayek took a deep breath as he held this child of his. _I will never tire of being chosen as a father. It is a weight I will gladly carry until my dying day._

Anyone who tried to take this away from him would pay most dearly.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I know some people are still waiting for a Tsundoku update, and that's next on my list, hopefully! Thanks for your patience.
> 
> WARNING: Mentions of suicide.

The ten days it took for Bayek to murder the man – and those he had hired – who had tried to take their Desmond passed rather unremarkably.

Sure, there were a few more unmarked graves in the area, but nothing really interesting had happened in that time. Desmond was hard to pry out of the kitchens and more often than not Kadar was beating up the adult Hidden Ones and laughing about it. They were all in awe of Bayek’s sons and how quick and competent they were at skills they themselves were just adopting as adults.

Not exactly what they wished to leave them the impression of, starting intense training earlier, but telling them that the kids were shrunken adults just wasn’t an option.

Of course, Aya had spread the word that Bayek had passed some ‘sacred Godly ritual’ that had returned his Youth to him as a boon. So he could walk about amongst his new Order without worry of being called a liar just yet. This mysterious temple in which this ‘ritual’ had taken place had disappeared in the desert as well.

As these things went.

Religion was a strange thing, and Alexios had never been particularly pious.

There likely would be numerous random excursions out into the desert to _find_ this supposed temple, but that was also just how this went. If anyone _did_ find a magical disappearing and reappearing temple in the sands, then Alexios would congratulate them and walk the other way.

Nothing good ever came from mystical ‘providence’, he had learned.

Still, he greeted his lover warmly when he returned in the night, the boys curled up together like prickly kittens after wearing each other out. It turned out that Kadar had _opinions_ about how spicy something was and had also stolen some of Desmond’s dates. Sincere cause for war, apparently, for those who had chosen to be children once again.

Alexios could say that he had never been happier, and he could taste the truth of those words.

“Good hunting?” he asked lowly, helping Bayek remove his armor and stained clothing. “You appear to have all the pieces you left with.”

“Mm, yes,” those honey eyes looked up at him with a tired, warm smile, four fingered hand lifted to cup his jaw. “Would you like to help me take stock?”

“Oh, dearly so.”

This cobbled together family of theirs was a wonder.

~*~

Clay had been here for a long time.

Waiting.

At least, it felt like it had been a long time, as if he had diligently pressed a reflection of himself into the Animus in desperation. Yet, at the same time, it had been only a short while ago since he had gone cold and heavy as his heart struggled to create enough oxygenated blood to keep him alive. Since his blood spattered the walls in a way that would stain words permanently into place for the Eagle Vision.

Since his body had died, finally catching up to the rest of him that had been so torn apart.

Most of that time, he hadn’t been doing much. At first, he’d attempted to explore this stupid Animus loading screen place. It had gotten boring ~~horrifying~~ because things never actually changed, and there was no way of telling if he’d made progress. So, he’d stopped.

Occasionally he felt like he saw something – some _one_ – out of the corner of his eye, but every time he tried to see, they were gone. It was fantastic to realize that he could also hallucinate in death, his convergent existences as digital and physical making him a nonsense entity.

There was no one there. Of _course_ there was no one there.

No one was coming to save Clay, because there was no one out there who cared to. He’d died twice and each time had been painful beyond words.

Broken down on a digital level and erased piece by piece, bit by bit, consumed by the Animus.

Mentally fragmented and slowly bleeding out, terrified of the unknown and slowly losing himself.

Dying had been terrifying both times, because digital him had known he had to be dead for Desmond to be there. And physical him hadn’t known if the copy would be able to do what it needed to do if his last ditch efforts would succeed.

Every time he spotted that silhouette out of the corner of his eye, he wondered if he was really simply crazy, that none of it had happened. Then he would remember the pain, would think of Desmond, and feel his headache like it was going to explode for things he couldn’t control.

He was tired. He was restless.

He was still fucking alone.

Clay spent the majority of his time pretending to sleep because he couldn’t get his stupid brain to turn off. Out of all the things that were bothering him after he’d let William seduce him with ideas of being an Assassin, of fighting for the freedom of humanity even without being strong physically. About meaning something more than a legacy for a father that had never really understood him.

He’d hoped that Desmond had lived, that he’d managed to stop the Templars and been freed, but every time he thought about it, pain coiled from his arms up into his head.

Probably some Isu bullshit if he thought about it. Desmond hadn’t explained much, hadn’t _known_ much, but everything that been going on had been more than what Clay had thought. Than what he’d been led to believe before his mind fell apart because Lucy had betrayed him, trapping him in his own version of hell. That really seemed like just about everything, after all, being led around by the nose by people he wanted to actually care about him.

Clay wondered what had happened, but it seemed that his bid to help Subject 17 had trapped him even after deletion. That somehow, he was still stuck in this place despite effectively being dead, his presence both less and more than he remembered it being at both his ends.

Being erased was different than becoming a cold hunk of meat; he could have done without the knowledge, but at least he knew this was _him._ Right?

After an endless time of wandering in the white hellscape of eternity, Clay just… stopped.

He sat down like he was an ancient thing, an old, old man even if he’d felt impossibly young as he lay dying by his own hand.

Clay hadn’t wanted to die.

He hadn’t _wanted to die._ Had wanted to maybe, _maybe_ , have that chance to be a person again instead of a program. Joining the Brotherhood had been about choosing something for himself, for finding a purpose outside of what was expected, and it had killed him in the end.

All he’d wanted was to live his life the way that he wanted, the way that he could look back on and not feel the aching numbness of monotony as he had as a child. Every time that his father had looked at a grade, read over a report and told him that he expected better before continuing to ignore Clay. It was a deep ravine of apathy and self-loathing and the thought that he wasn’t worth anything without someone else telling him who and what to be.

The therapy had been supposed to help with that, to help him find self-actualization and all those things that would help him figure out who _Clay_ was.

It didn’t feel like he’d been able to find that, to find out what kind of person he was other than someone desperate for approval.

God, William had really used his daddy issues against him fucking _masterfully_ , hadn’t he?

Sitting alone and lonely and fuzzy at the edges like a painting curling at the edges from water damage, color dripping away, Clay buried his face in his knees and wrapped his arms around his head. It wasn’t as if there was anyone around to see him and he figured he’d earned himself a bit of a crying jag of some sort.

Even if he felt unreal, his discomfort – hot puffy eyes, stuffy nose, pounding head – was easily discernable amongst the nothingness everywhere else. He curled up tighter, breath hitching with such crushing fucking _loneliness,_ trying to pull up the feeling of that last desperate embrace he’d practically forced on Desmond.

Making friends had never really been his forte, slightly awkward, and unable to talk about many of the interests the other kids and his classmates had had. He’d thought that Lucy was his friend, that William was behind him, but it turned out that after a lifetime without proper socialization Clay’s judgement was impaired.

They had used him so easily, and Clay had always thought he was so _smart._

But Desmond, for all his cluelessness and denial and general uncomfortable demeanor, had still been _kinder_ than anyone else that hadn’t been paid for it. Clay had liked his therapist, but it was literally in the job description that they had to work with their clients even if they weren’t overly fond of them. Outright dislike, sure, they could drop a patient, but Clay brought up indifference in most people, honestly.

So, he clung to the phantom sensation of contact that had only happened digitally, so that he didn’t have to think about the slow drag of physical death.

He wondered if he could make himself forget.

If it would be easier to not know what it was that he was missing.

He wondered how Desmond was, and cried as the pain set in again, as if a mental block was in place to keep him from thinking about it.

Clay was tired.

The silhouette moved, unseen but almost felt.

And then – and _then_ –

_So warm. I’d forgotten._

~*~

Waking abruptly, Desmond sat up.

Arabic swearing slid into his ears as Kadar was shoved to the side, the blanket covering them tangled around his brother.

“Desmond?” his _baba_ was half sat up from where he’d likely been laid with his head in Alexios’ lap, the two of them disgustingly wholesome sometimes. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t – he _couldn’t_ – his hand buzzed with urgent discomfort like a phone on vibrate, as if Desmond were receiving several missed texts all at once. Or an Amber Alert in his area. It was hard to catch his breath suddenly and he leaned back into Kadar as he pressed into his side with worry. Wide awake when for a trained Assassin Kadar was actually a bit of a heavy sleeper, Desmond let his brother take his weight.

Familiar arms wrapped around both of them, and he blinked rapidly against discomfort and a sense of _urgency_ that he couldn’t explain. Burying his face against Bayek’s tunic, he breathed shakily while his arm continued to send pulses into the rest of his body.

It didn’t hurt, per se, but it was… it wasn’t comfortable.

Pins and needles and pressure.

“There is a trail,” Alexios spoke, a frown in his normally cheerful voice. “It leads from the God Hand out into the desert.”

A cry from Ikaros and Senu from above, oddly harmonized in a way that made the jittery energy in Desmond’s body settle. It nudged that humming, buzzing sensation to the side just enough that it was like he was hearing a frequency he’d heard before. It gave him the understanding he hadn’t had moments ago when he’d been jarred awake by bullshit Isu tech.

Someone was calling him.

Someone was – it was almost familiar, like a name carved into a table and seen every day, known but unnoticed and.

And they needed help.

“ _Baba_ ,” Desmond looked up at Bayek, whose face was soft with concern and eyes sharp with strength. “There’s someone _calling_ for me.”

Anxiety curled under his sternum and he couldn’t quite name what the sudden energy in his veins was, why he suddenly felt the need to _move._ Anything involving his stupid Apple Arm was the definition of sketchy, and yet when he looked with his Eagle Vision, the world sharpened, and he felt something in the distance that was _important._ His throat felt tight and his heart thudded heavily in his chest as he looked up at his father again, worried but also faintly intent.

Having the power to decide someone’s fate had never sat well with Desmond. The ability to make the choice that would change their lives.

He liked to help people, in that vague way that good deeds done made him happy, but he’d never considered himself particularly altruistic. He’d tried to save the world because no one else would, and because he’d constantly been told that he was the only option. As if his – as if Bill – hadn’t had the same blood flowing through his veins.

Bayek looked down at him calmly, his Hidden hand wrapping around Desmond’s stupid hand, quieting some of that buzzing sensation.

“What do you want to do?”

Swallowing thickly, Desmond glanced over at Kadar, who was frowning but shrugged at the question in his eyes. Which was not helpful in the least.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth to answer.

Really, what else could he do?

~*~

Watching the white man wander in this spirit realm, following unseen and unheard, had sated some of his hunting instincts.

It eased some of the quiet despair that had settled into his bones after the rage had burned out of him, leaving ash in its wake. His people were dead and gone, his home and purpose. He had been used for terrible aim, twisted by gods not his own into actions he could not prevent.

Many had died because of him, by his hand and followed by his actions.

Ratonhnhaké:ton would not be used again, by spirit or god or man. His strength was his own to wield in whatever way he saw fit, his blades and tomahawk for himself and his will alone. He had never raised hand to a civilian no matter who had tried to point him in that direction, his mind stronger than others via training and perhaps nature.

His mother’s words forever etched into his heart, that he does not lose himself, that he does not give into temptation.

His temptation he had dropped into the ocean and wished strength to those who followed after him in a world filled with strife.

It had been many years by his count, reaching into the ether of this place to watch the world change into something unrecognizable. He watched the Tribes culled and repressed and torn asunder from their homes, fighting for themselves as they always had done. Ratonhnhaké:ton would not disgrace them by giving himself over to the pull of this spirit place, to let himself be consumed.

So, he watched the white man, as he had distantly watched the father come for the son, hidden in the quiet spaces in the white. The demon-witch had tried to burn the world by consuming the spirits of humanity, to turn them into shambling hollow men. The son had found a way to circumvent this, and for that Ratonhnhaké:ton would give him respect, even as he faintly envied the family he had found.

Was grateful that at least one warrior was allowed peace after death, even if many were consumed by the cursed orbs and artifacts.

He was a creature of the past now, a man forgotten in time, waiting. Though for what he knew not; perhaps he would never know. Perhaps there was nothing.

Still, Ratonhnhaké:ton would not allow himself to be consumed by white and gold light like those who had come before him. He would not be a shade shambling backwards through the cracks in this world, following a trail to an unknown destination that may not even exist calling for those gone.

There was little to do but watch and wait, here in this place where Ratonhnhaké:ton could control some, but not enough. If he focused, he could call upon the animal spirits, but they were hollow things in this place, lacking the soul and freedom of the wild.

He had only done so once and found it distasteful, though it had not felt so in that other place with Washington. Reality was twisted in _this_ place as well, but it was still the sterility of the old machinations and magics, not of the other place he had briefly visited.

Alone, in meditation and not, he waited for the world to change, for this place to fade as all things did.

And he watched the white man.

It was clear that he was a wounded thing, fragile heart even if there was keen intelligence in those pale eyes. Thinner and shorter than Ratonhnhaké:ton, but then again, most were. He wore strange clothing and had pale golden hair above pale skin and light eyes, features splotched read with emotion.

He looked as any other white man, and yet he seemed…

He was grieving. What, he did not know, but clearly it was something powerful enough to bring tears to the man’s eyes. To have him fall to the ground and curl upon himself, racked by sobs that no white man would admit to having the emotional capacity for. Perhaps he grieved himself, perhaps he grieved those left behind.

Perhaps he had fallen into despair and would soon be consumed by this place.

Ratonhnhaké:ton did not know. He only knew that he may have learned patience, learning to wait, but he had ever been a man of action.

Stepping out of the cracks in this world, he sat himself back to back with the young white man, who stiffened and then cried harder. Sitting cross-legged, Ratonhnhaké:ton let the man lean back against him, let him feel the heat of companionship though they shared no words.

Many things in life he had reason to regret, many things he had blindly trusted and been lead astray. In death, perhaps, he could tread more carefully in the interactions with people, but he did not wish to be cruel.

His mother had not raised him to be cruel.

So, Ratonhnhaké:ton _reached._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ratonhnhaké:ton (ra-doon-ha-gay-doon) – life that is scratched, referring to a struggle to survive

**Author's Note:**

> Haris: Arabic word for guardian, keeper, sentry or sentinel
> 
> I got this off google, so if I'm wrong, please let me know!


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